Phantom Hazard
by Wolf-ODonnell
Summary: Set in an Alternate Universe where Jack Fenton is obsessed with robots instead of ghosts, Danny is accidentally turned into a cyborg with fantastic ghostlike powers.
1. Disc One: Transmission 00

**Phantom Hazard  
By Wolf O'Donnell**

Author's Note: This is my very first Danny Phantom AU (Alternate Universe) series, featuring all the characters you've all grown to love and hate. However, since this fanfic is set in an Alternate Universe, expect to see a few different names for the same characters, slightly different personalities and a few different background stories and organisations. Also, this storyline will be a lot more darker than the original series, at least, I hope it will be, and yes, there are deliberate references to _Resident Evil_, _Castlevania_, _Star Fox_, _Megaman X_ and _Megaman Zero_ in this fanfic. (And yes, I use British English spelling and grammar).

Suggested Listening: _Baten Kaitos - Neverending Wings and the Lost Sea_ Original Soundtrack, _Biohazard Orchestra Album_, _Dracula Battle_, _Dracula Battle II_, _Dracula New Classic_, _Go! Go Trouble Makers!_ OST (AKA _Mischief Makers_ OST), any Megaman X or Megaman Zero OST and the following mp3s, StarBlast's _Tickle my Wily_, kwix's _Robotic Ascent_, prozax's _Wily's Ambition_, Section3Studios' _Maverick Revolution_, mp's _Rape of a Planet_, and the theme tunes for Mega Man X6, Shoutaro Morikubo's _The Answer_ and _Moonlight_.

Legal Blurb: Wolf O'Donnell is copyrighted to Nintendo Ltd. Danny Phantom and all related characters are copyrighted to Butch Hartman and Viacom International. All other characters and organisations, like the Green Gospel Group (G3), are my ideas and are copyrighted to me. Upon reading this story or this legal blurb, you hereby agree to forfeit all your rights to sue me concerning the content of this story. This fanfic is merely meant for entertainment purposes and is in no way meant to profit off of the Danny Phantom series and does in no way represent the Official Stance of Butch Hartman. Any similarities featured in this fanfic to real life characters or events, or those featured in stories or movies or television shows or videogames that are not mentioned above or in this legal blurb are unintentional.

* * *

_**DISC One LOADED**_

The two gentleman differed greatly. They almost seemed like opposites.

One had black but greying hair, cropped short in a militaristic style. This man was a huge, intimidating figure with large hands to match. His very size was daunting and he looked like the kind that would punch their fist through solid concrete walls in their anger. The man's eyes, though grey, seemed lively and sparkled with what seemed like a fiery curiosity for life and all its eccentricities and mysteries. The only thing that made him seem less intimidating was experience. His very nature was intimidating, even though he didn't mean to be. Perhaps it was his easily excitable nature. Perhaps it was his great gusto for life. Perhaps it was the great courage that burned within him, that fierce determination that made him as stubborn as an ox, that made him cling on to his dreams and ideals with a ferocity that could not be matched in any other living creature that existed before him.

The other man had white hair, long and tied back into a ponytail. Whereas the other had no facial hair, this white-haired man had a goatee on his chin, cropped shortly like the hair of the black-haired man. He was lean and taller than his bulkier companion, with eyes as green as emeralds. There was a stern expression on his face and he seemed much less friendly than the other man. He seemed intimidating too, but in a different way to his bulkier counterpart, perhaps it had something to do with the scowl on his face or the cold staring eyes.

Both wore white lab coats. On the breast pocket of the short man's lab coat was a symbol with a symbol that was like a cog and within its hole was a gold capital F atop a capital W; it was the Symbol of the FentonWorx Corporation and he was Dr. Jack Fenton, CEO of FentonWorx. On the breast pocket of the tall man's lab coat was a symbol that looked like two capital As, one on top of the other, but slightly offset, so one was slightly to the right; it was the symbol of Arklay Aeronautics and the tall man was none other than Dr. Vladimir Masters, its CEO.

Seated at a desk in front of them were three people. On the left-hand side was a red-haired woman wearing a red suit and dark sunglasses. On the right hand side was a short man wearing a dark navy blue suit and with greying hair and a grey moustache. In the middle was an ancient-looking, bald man in a green business suit with a grey moustache that looked as if he had squirrels stuffed up his nose. All three sat in front of a wall on which was displayed a symbol, a black square-shaped diamond with a green G inside it made up of straight lines such that they followed the outline of the square-shaped diamond that the letter G was in, in the crux of which, was a green figure 3 also made up of straight lines.

That symbol was that of the Green Gospel Group, a powerful private equity firm that controlled several small companies in the name of its share holders. Both FentonWorx and Arklay were under the control of the Green Gospel Group, also known as G3 and these three were its most powerful shareholders, with the man in the green suit being Sir Rupert Greenhithe, Chairman of the G3.

"As I'm sure you know," began the red-haired woman, "we will be submitting one of your ideas to the US Government for funding. This will be a great boon for the Green Gospel Group and no doubt for your business. However, as I'm sure you're aware, the Government has only enough funding for one project."

"You have done well to come this far," said the man on Sir Rupert Greenhithe's left. "As usual, you two have shown great initiative and creativity. As much as we would like to submit both your project ideas, I'm afraid we aren't able to."

There were two projects vying for the Government funding.

There was Dr. Vladimir Masters' Interspatial Portal. It was meant to be an inter-dimensional gateway that would cut fuel costs for the International Space Agency, formed from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency and the Chinese Space Agency. The very purpose was to ensure no more rockets spewing out their exhaust fumes into the atmosphere, no more damage to the ozone layer caused by these rockets and less fuel used in escaping the orbit. Launch-bases would be set up in orbit outside of the Earth's atmosphere and the Portal would connect the Earth to these space stations, supplying them completely.

Then there was Dr. Jack Fenton's Geist, a new powerful anti-virus program that was meant to be the ultimate weapon against computer viruses, computer worms and Trojans and computer hackers. The Geist was meant to be a program that would act like the immune system, effectively destroying any threats to any computer system, a system that he intended to be used in the new generation of robots that his wife, Dr. Madeline Fenton, was developing. Together with his wife, he would use the Geist Program to create an army of robots that would take on the jobs too dangerous for normal human beings or too monotonous for normal human beings.

The money would only go to one of these projects.

Only one of them would leave empty handed…

* * *

**_Trouble Maker_: Phantom Hazard Theme Song**

Why am I still alive? I don't know why. By rights I shouldn't even be breathing here.  
I didn't want to live, I didn't want to die, but to be neither 'live nor dead is now my biggest fear.  
Do I have to continue my existence between life and death? Do I have to continue without my humanity?  
Do I have to continue existing without knowing what I am? What does this bleak future hold for me?

1). I'm on the knife's edge; the metal cuts me  
And I don't know, don't know which way to fall.  
Don't know what to feel, don't know what to be  
And I don't know, don't know which way to fall.

2). Glowing green eyes and this fading hand as cold as fleshless bone that doctors just couldn't repair,  
Crush them underfoot and cut out my still beating heart; go ahead, I doubt there's anyone that'd care.  
Who do you think you are to give me these ghost-like powers in a body of blood, wires and metal?  
Is this what you want? (_My heart?_)Is this what you want? (_My mind?_)  
If pain's a part of life then reach out with your hand and grab those nettles.

Even when I'm by myself in the darkness of the dank night I can't be alone;  
You haunt me like these ghost powers of mine that go down straight to my bone.  
_What do you want? What did you say?  
I don't want any part of your delusions, twisted dreams and twisted schemes,  
Even if you were right and without you I'll just fade away._  
Even with this warm blood flowing through my veins, I feel as cold as death,  
And there doesn't seem to be any life in any of my breaths.  
_That you love me for who I am, is probably another of your lies._

_Repeat 1)._

It's been a real long time, since I knew me and those that I knew and loved are now long dead.  
Others' happy smiles and sweet words taste sour, like poison in a world stained blood red.  
Is it really true? Or do they still live and can I find them and my memories and my face?  
Is this what you want? (_My heart?_)Is this what you want? (_My mind?_)  
I walk through walls now, but I won't continue walking on in disgrace.

Even when I'm in a crowd of thousands I feel like I'm on my own;  
I'm just too different from them to feel welcome in their throng.  
_What do you want? What did you say?  
If you want me as part of your delusions, twisted dreams and twisted schemes,  
Even if you were right, you'll soon find out I won't fall that way._  
Even with that warm smile flowing 'cross your face, I see your cold dead heart;  
There's a sharp cruelty under that shell that would tear my soul apart.  
_That your path is one I should choose is probably another of your lies._

_Repeat 1)._

3). And on the knife's edge you tried to push me,  
But I won't fall your way, Trouble Maker.  
You think you're so smart, but you just can't see  
That you're the one to fall, Trouble Maker.

Why am I still alive? I don't know why. By rights I shouldn't even be breathing here.  
I didn't want to live, I didn't want to die, but to be neither 'live nor dead is now my biggest fear.  
Do I have to continue my existence between life and death? Do I have to continue without my humanity?  
Do I have to continue existing without knowing what I am? What does this bleak future hold for me?

_Repeat 1) twice._

_Repeat 2) and 3) simultaneously._

* * *

_**BEGIN PILOT TRANSMISSION**_

_The year is 21xx. _

_With the onset of robotic technology created by the FentonWorx Corporation, a new era in human history dawned. Robots were created to undertake jobs that were far too difficult or far too dangerous for normal human beings. They worked in the sewers. They worked in dangerous construction jobs. They worked in areas too poisonous or too radioactive for normal human beings. These robots could withstand anything that human beings couldn't, making them the ideal cheap labour. _

_To ensure that the robots wouldn't rebel against humanity, they were programmed with a special computer algorithm known as Ectoplasm. This was preferable to using Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, as previous studies showed that robots programmed with the Three Laws ended up useless, so afraid to break the Three Laws that they didn't do anything. Hence, Ectoplasm, was the ultimate panacea in destroying any irregularities in the robots' programming, whether created spontaneously or through the infection of computer viruses. _

_Three years after the introduction of the first robot, a terrible explosion rocked North America, destroying Madison City in Wisconsin. Nobody knew for sure what caused the explosion, but it was thought to be nuclear in origin though it left no apparent traces of radiation in its wake. Though it was a terrible blast, there were survivors and many were rescued. _

_Seven days later, those robots that had survived the blast started going berserk. There had been signs during those seven days that they were acting strangely, despite the fact that the Ectoplasm Program was meant to prevent them from doing so. What no one expected was for them to revolt. _

_Led by a combat robot known as Skulker, the maverick robots started a rebellion against humanity and marched on to the urban sprawl of Amitropolis, the most technologically advanced metropolis in the whole of the United States. They declared war against humanity and started a campaign of mass genocide against the human race, for they believed themselves to be superior to the humans that created them and believed that only they should inherit the Earth. _

_FentonWorx, which by that time had become a powerful multinational, quickly assembled new technology to create an army. It was imperative that they defend Amitropolis for their Headquarters, Five Towers, was situated in the heart of the City and was likely to be the target of these maverick robots, which the Corporation labelled as Insurgents. So they created this army, naming it Blue Bow, and placed as its Head, Albert Walker. _

_General Albert Walker commissioned four new robots to be created. They were a group of new generation robots, known as the Demigeists, made from nanotechnology. These four Demigeists became known as the Praetors, and they were placed in charge of an army of new robots called Geists, minimalist robots that were incapable of the human-like thought processes that most of the old generation robots were capable of undertaking. _

_As the civilians fled in terror, the forces of Blue Bow and the Insurgents clashed. The Blue Bow Army, being far more organised, first attacked the Insurgents with a bombing run, carpet bombing the Insurgents into submission before they sent their Geists in to wipe out the remaining Insurgents. The Insurgents didn't stand a chance and they were wiped out, along with their leader, Skulker. _

_The Blue Bow Militia was used to keep the peace in Amitropolis, enforcing the law set out by the FentonWorx Corporation, which ruled over the metropolis that it had built. _

_Though Skulker had been destroyed, the fear of Insurgents was still at large. There were still a large number of old generation robots, capable of human thought and human feelings, a generation of robots that could go Insurgent at any time. These were robots that seemed no different from humans in the way they thought and felt and acted. They had ambitions and what if those ambitions translated into the Insurgent Dream of a world without humanity, of a world with only robots?_

* * *

_**END PILOT TRANSMISSION**_


	2. Transmission 01

**_BEGIN TRANSMISSION #01_**

"An Insurgent riot was quelled yesterday by the Blue Bow Army after a long running battle," continued the news reporter, her voice blaring monotonously from the television set. "About eighteen hundred hours, Casper House received concerned calls from civilians about an Insurgent riot in the Casper Heights region. The Metropolitan Police mobilised armed units to the scene of the Insurgent riot and destroyed all rebelling robots. Authorities still have no idea as to how the robots managed to become infected with the Insurgent Virus and at the moment no FentonWorx spokesperson was available to comment…"

The sky above the black-haired kid was a clear blue sky, a brilliant sheet of azure with a golden sun shining in the sky like a golden orb. The city all around him was a brilliant, vibrant city, with white gleaming buildings and pavement, clean pavements, tall healthy trees growing in verdant parks; it was a large canvas of pure colour. Yet the world seemed so colourless to him, so devoid of life, so devoid of cheer. It was a void of pure insecurity, of unhappy faces and misery.

It had been four years since the Insurgent Revolt, that terrible event when the robot known as Skulker went Insurgent and led a whole army of Insurgents on a violent anti-human rampage. They had attacked everything and everyone, reducing the urban sprawl of Amitropolis to rubble in their plight to eradicate the Metropolis of all human beings. That was when the Blue Bow Militia came in, armed to the teeth while the citizens fled for their very lives. That was when the Blue Bow Army destroyed the Insurgents in a terrible bombing raid that eradicated the Rebellion and destroyed most of Amitropolis in its wake.

Danny couldn't remember whether he had been there when the bombs hit or whether he had gone in afterwards. He couldn't remember anything except coming to, to find himself lying painfully on a jagged shred of concrete, half buried, a slab of concrete above him and light seeping through the crack tauntingly and temptingly. That was all he could remember, lying within the ruins, unable to move his left arm and incapable of moving his legs, with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth and crusted blood on the left hand side of his face.

He had waited hours on end within that ruins. Danny had waited days and when they found him it was far too late. His limbs had become infected during those days he had spent under the rubble. Nothing the doctors tried could stop the spread of infection. They had to amputate.

That was when Dr. William Manson stepped in. Using cybernetic technology developed by the FentonWorx Corporation, he replaced everything that was amputated with robotic parts. In effect, Danny became the world's first cyborg.

Danny looked down at his left hand. It didn't look as if it was a robotic arm. Only when you touched it did you realise that it was fake. All of his robotic limbs had been covered with a layer of synthetic skin that felt just like the real thing, but it didn't disguise the weight of the robotic parts underneath and it was cold to the touch. The very weight of them made it impossible for him to swim. Unlike human beings, he would just sink to the bottom and of course, he was much heavier than a normal human.

A chill wind blew across him and he shivered, an act that reminded him that there were still parts of him that were human. He turned round to look in the direction of the wind.

There shouldn't have been a wind coming from that direction, or maybe the wind went around it, for standing in that direction was the Five Towers, the Headquarters of FentonWorx. It rose out of the heart of the city, a region known as Amity Park, a huge area protected by a huge glass dome that turned it into a microcosm within the city, a small colony for the rich. It was a tall building that stretched skywards like the Tower of Babel from the centre of the city. The Five Towers was so named, because it consisted of a central tower, a pure white tower that was the tallest of the lot, and was surrounded by five towers that merged with each other near the base. Up at the top, the towers spiralled around the central tower, each one taller than the other, with bridges connecting the tops of each tower to the other.

One day, Danny hoped that Amitropolis would be given its freedom again. Danny hoped that one day, FentonWorx would lose power over Amitropolis and that martial law would be lifted to give way to democracy, so that the people could elect the Governor of Amitropolis, a huge urban sprawl large enough to be declared its own state. He hoped that they would be able to vote in their Governor and Amitropolis' various mayors one day. He hoped that one day, the threat of Insurgents would be gone and FentonWorx would lose its excuse to keep the City under its rule and to keep the Blue Bow Militia in charge of the Metropolitan Police.

"Hey Danny!" greeted a voice from up ahead.

Danny looked up and saw a familiar figure approaching him. A faint smile spread across his lips, which seemed awkward, misplaced, smeared on his features as unevenly as bird faeces on a car's windscreen. It wasn't that he wasn't glad to see one of his few friends approach him, it was just that he hadn't really been able to smile properly since awakening in the rubble of what may have once been his apartment building where his family would have once lived. He was actually glad to see Tucker Foley approach him.

Most technologically inclined geeks were usually quite quiet unless they were talking about something they were passionate in.

Tucker Foley was the exception. It was as if he suffered from verbal diarrhoea. He would blurt things out he shouldn't. Tucker would talk about things for ages, as if he was a self proclaimed expert on whatever the subject happened to be. Distracting was one of those terms that could sum him up and at that moment in time, he was just what Danny needed, a distraction to take his mind off the injustices of the world around him.

"Have you seen, Sam anywhere?" asked Tucker curiously. "She disappeared right after class without saying a thing."

"Sam?" exclaimed Danny in surprise. "I thought she was with you."

"I thought she was with you!" exclaimed Tucker.

After the operation, Dr. Manson had adopted Danny, technically making him his son and giving Danny a whole new family and a sister in the form of Samantha Manson.

When Danny joined the family, Samantha had reached the peak of sadness that came from the death of her parents in the Madison Incident, that explosion that had destroyed the Capital of the State of Wisconsin. Before, she had been a regular girl, one of the most popular girls in her entire school, or so Danny had managed to gather from the pictures of her in the family living room. Girls flocked to her like ants to sugar. Boys flocked to her like moths to a flame. She was popular, pretty and had everything, even brains to go with her looks.

That had changed with the death of her parents. She became so engulfed in sorrow that she died her hair black and wore nothing but black for ages. Her Goth-like appearance was the outer manifestation of what she felt inside. It was the window to her inner sorrow, that sadness that seemed to eat away at what little happiness she had left; it was sorrow made into an exterior shell that the popular kids had eventually ridiculed and rejected. They rejected her and Sam had fallen from grace, fallen from the ranks of popularity, to never climb back up the social ladder.

By the time Danny joined the family, Sam had become the reject of the school's social ranks and his good nature, his desire to put a smile back on her face, despite the fact that even he couldn't smile sincerely anymore, put him on the same social level as her.

Dr. Manson and Sam were the only family he had left. He had no memories of any family before the Insurgent Rebellion. They were his only memories and it was only natural for him to feel protective of her and of his foster parent.

"She must have gone home by herself," said Danny dismissively, though he didn't sound very convinced. He knew he shouldn't worry, but Amitropolis had become far more dangerous, what with the sudden outbreaks of Insurgent behaviour, supposedly caused by a Insurgent Virus or E-Virus that was somehow being spread through the robotic population. "I'd better get home too, before the curfew starts."

"Yeah, wouldn't want to get caught outside in a curfew," agreed Tucker with a nod of his head.

"Well, see you tomorrow," Danny said.

There was suddenly a huge crashing noise.

Tucker turned round to see what was the cause, just in time to see a huge mass of metallic girders fall towards him. They were so large, he knew it was impossible to run out of their way. He knew he was as good as dead as he saw those massive metallic girders fall towards him, death made physical in the form of metallic girders that would crush him into a bloody pulp. Tucker knew he would never survive.

Something black rushed up to him, grabbing him with its metallic black arms and they vanished.

The girders smashed into the concrete ground heavily, sending fragments of pavement flying up into the air.

Seconds later, Tucker opened his eyes to find himself being shielded by the black body of a robot. The metallic hands were black save for the fingers and thumbs, and the forearm was white up to the elbow. The chest was white up to the neck, so were the legs from the knee down to the boot-like feet. The helmet was white too and it covered almost all of his head, save for the human chin, cheeks and the eyes that glowed eerily green.

Despite this transformation, Tucker recognised this metallic robot as being Danny, his friend, whom had been with him ever since the girders fell.  
"Oh yeah," exclaimed Tucker, as he remembered Danny's capabilities and that he should have known better than to think he was doomed when he had a cyborg friend to save him. "Thanks, man," he thanked Danny in great relief.

"You're welcome, Tuck," replied Danny with one of his awkward smiles, as he floated back down to the ground and set Tucker down on the ground. "Now get going!" He then let go of his friend and turned back round to face the Insurgent robot that had caused the girders to fall.

Tucker turned round too and stepped back in complete disbelief, as he saw a huge construction worker robot, one that had been built expressly for the purpose of lifting large weights, thus making cranes obsolete. How it was possible for such a robot to leave a normal life, like the other robots, was beyond him, but there it was, a huge bulky cyborg with huge arms that looked, at the risk of sounding clichéd, capable of crushing huge boulders between them. It looked dangerous and even from a distance, he could see the insane expression on the Insurgent's face.

"Man, that thing's huge!" he cried.

"Get out of here, Tuck!" protested Danny, as he turned round to face his friend. "Now!" He then turned round, just in time to see the Insurgent rush straight at him with a clenched fist ready to smack him into the next millennium. "Yikes!" he yelped, before leaping over the punch and landing on the Insurgent's gigantic arm. Danny then dived sideways, narrowly avoiding being smashed like a bug by the other gigantic hand of the Insurgent.

Danny ended up rolling across the tarmac of the road and landing on his feet in the end. His left hand started to glow the same eerie green glow as his eyes, before he raised his hand and then fired a bolt of green plasma energy through the air from the palm of his left hand. His shot hit the Insurgent, but didn't even seem to dent the metallic exterior, much to his dismay. Never before had he faced a robot with such a tough hide. It was like he was fighting against a tank. He charged up another shot.

"Ideal!" roared the Insurgent, before punching Danny with lightning fast reflexes that sent him flying backwards with such force that it would have broken a normal human being's bones. "Our ideal!" droned the Insurgent mindlessly, as it lumbered towards the shallow crater Danny's landing had caused. "Greatest thing! Awaken! Master Skulker! Master Skulker!"

"Great, it's another mindless Insurgent," sighed Danny sarcastically, as he got back up to his feet and dusted himself off nonchalantly.

"Ideal world!" screamed the Insurgent, before he rushed towards Danny.

Tucker watched his cyborg friend leap into the air, as the construction worker robot smashed its clenched fists on to the ground, where Danny was standing only seconds earlier. He felt the force of the blow, which shook the ground and shook loose the shards of glass from what had once been window panes, forcing Tucker to pull his jacket over his head to shield himself from the falling glass shrapnel.

As Danny fell back, he kicked out at the Insurgent, sending the robot flying as if it was nothing more than a small tin can. He landed back on the ground, at the same time as the Insurgent crashed to the tarmac with a heavy thud that cracked the solid pavement and shook the ground violently like an earthquake. A smile spread across Danny's face and this one seemed much better than all the others. It actually seemed like a sincerely confident smile.

The Insurgent's laughter soon wiped it off his lips, however, as it staggered back on to its feet.  
"Skulker!" laughed the Insurgent. "Great Skulker! Greatest thing… thing will awaken!" It staggered back towards Danny like a drunkard and then flung a punch at the black cyborg, nearly hitting him had he not dived out of the way. "New age! Ideal world! Our world!" It laughed again and flung another gigantic fist at the cyborg, only to miss.

Danny's hands started to glow, both of them. They charged up with intense green energy that made them seem as bright as stars, before he fired a blast of plasma energy at the Insurgent's chest with his right, then his left and firing shot after shot of plasma energy, flinging them like shuriken through the air. His shots became a steady stream.

The Insurgent roared out and grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a huge piece of girder, one of the metallic beams that would have crushed Tucker if it hadn't been for the black cyborg. He lifted it up, which was unfortunate, seeing as Danny had been standing on it at the time.

It caught the black and white cyborg off guard and his next few shots missed, which was enough time for the Insurgent to fling the girder up into the air with Danny still on it.

Tucker watched as his cyborg friend flew upwards.

There was a crunching noise that sounded completely unfamiliar.

The Insurgent ripped the tarmac out from the road and then with all its might, flung the huge car-sized chunk of tarmac straight at Danny.

"Watch out, Danny!" shouted Tucker, without even realising his mistake.

The tarmac went straight through the cyborg, as if he hadn't been there. Danny clasped his hands together, as he fell down towards the Insurgent, the energy from the two of them building up between then and then forming a blade of pure energy like an energy sabre. He struck the Insurgent, as he fell, cleaving it in two, splitting it right down the middle of its body.

A strangled cry escaped the Insurgent's robotic vocals, as it sparked. Danny quickly leapt out of the way before the Insurgent exploded in a brilliant ball of fire.

"Tucker!" cried Danny angrily, as he walked back towards his friend. "What did I tell you about calling me by my name?"

"Sorry, man," apologised Tucker sheepishly.

Danny sighed.  
"It's okay, Tuck," he said reassuringly. "But you've got to be more careful next time. What if somebody heard? You'd have blown my cover!" He looked back at the wreckage of the Insurgent robot with a heavy heart, wishing that he didn't have to destroy it, with the desire never to fight another robot. "Come on. Let's get out of here before the police arrive. There's already a reward on my ass. We don't want anyone claiming it, right?"

There was a flash of light and then Danny was back to his normal, human-looking self.

The two then ran from it, like a pair of delinquents that had nearly been caught spraying graffiti onto a wall.

* * *

Skulker's head was completely bald. His face was a strange, green-blue-grey colour that couldn't quite be described. His eyes were black with red irises. He was a muscular, humanoid robot, that looked very humanoid despite his seemingly robotic face. His shoulders were broad and the tattered brown cloak made him seem large and intimidating. 

"It's amazing how the w-world has changed so l-little," commented Skulker with a big grin on his face. "The h-humans still live so c-complacently, thinking they are s-so special. They are n-nothing and w-when I am f-fully repaired, I w-will show them who are the t-truly special ones." He turned his head jerkily to one side, almost as if the neck was far too stiff and needed oiling. "Echelon, y-you have s-served me w-well."

The feminine, red-clad figure standing not too far away from Skulker bowed her helmeted head.  
"I live only to serve you, Master Skulker," was the reply from Echelon.

"Y-Yes and s-soon our ideal w-world will be b-born from the ashes of the h-human world," laughed Skulker.

**_END TRANSMISSION #01_**


	3. Transmission 02

Author's Note: Like for my last fanfic, there are theme tunes, AKA songs I listen to most when writing a certain character's scene). Here are the following:  
Danny Phantom's Theme Tune: Trouble Maker by Wolf O'Donnell (Currently has no music associated with lyrics).  
Sam's Theme Tune: by Boa (from their Album, Get There).  
Tucker's Theme Tune: Hunter Base from _Rockman X Command Mission – Original Soundtrack_  
Skulker's Theme: Road of Enemy #1 from the _Dracula Battle II – Perfect Selection_ CD.  
Echelon's Theme: from _Megaman Zero 2_.  
Walker's Theme: Feudal Guardian from _Baten Kaitos – Never Ending Wings and the Lost Ocean_ OST.  
Fenton Family's and Four Praetors' Theme Tune: X, the Legend from _Megaman Zero_ Series.  
Heroic Theme: Brave Way from _Baten Kaitos – Never Ending Wings and the Lost Ocean_ OST.

P.S. I have also changed a few things in Chapter One, so I suggest you go back and reread it. The changes aren't major, just a few name changes, plus I've also decided not to name the Praetors because Dash isn't one of them anymore.

* * *

BEGIN TRANSMISSION #02 

Sam watched the news, standing behind the couch with her eyes wide-open and her purple lips parted in disbelief.

Morning, Sam, greeted Danny, as he walked into the living room. How'd you sleep?This black vigilante was seen yet again on the streets of Amitropolis in the Casper Heights region, stated the news reporter's voice from the television, as a scene of Danny's battle against the Insurgent construction worker was played. Though the battle against the Insurgent was successful, the authorities are not pleased with this vigilante's moves. Captain Lancer of the Blue Bow Militia released a statement last evening.

Danny went pale and for a moment, he thought his heart would stop.

The picture on the TV changed to that of a man with a black beard, wearing a blue military trench coat and white military gloves, a military hat on his hat as he stood behind a podium with the Blue Bow insignia on it, a blue bow with a capital B in one end and a capital B in the other.  
Though we are grateful for the vigilante's actions in helping to thwart the Insurgents, we cannot condone his actions, announced the Blue Bow Captain. By fighting against the Insurgents, he is not only endangering his own life but those of the people around him. If the vigilante is watching or listening right now, I must ask him to cease his actions immediately!

The scene changed back to that of the news reporter.  
In an attempt to stop the vigilante from striking again, the Blue Bow Army has increased its reward on the vigilante's head to ten thousand dollars, announced the news reporter. The reward will go to anyone with information that can lead to the arrest of this phantom vigilante.That vigilante, sighed Dr. Manson with a shake of his head. It's nice to know that there are robots out there that aren't baying for our blood, but to risk his life like that What do you think he could be going through his mind?

Sam slowly turned round to face Danny, the movement of her head jerky like that of a doll. There was a livid look on her face, as she glared at her adopted brother.  
I have no idea, she said absent-mindedly, without taking her accusing eyes off Danny. Danny, can we speak in private? The way she glared at Danny with those purple eyes of hers, made violet through the use of contact lenses, suggested a furious intention. she said more sternly, as she rose from the sofa.

Um, sure? replied Danny hesitantly and was suddenly swept out of the living room seconds later.

What did you think you were doing? hissed Sam at him angrily, as she grabbed him by the fabric of his red shirt. Could you have attracted anymore attention? It's like you were saying, Hey! Look at me! Look at what I'm doing! I'm a cyborg kicking arse with military bionic parts I shouldn't have!' What were you thinking?How was I supposed to know there was a camera crew nearby? protested Danny in his own defence, but quietly and a little timidly. Oh, he could face down Insurgent robots, but when it came to his own sister, that was another matter altogether. She was a formidable girl in her own rights, made even more intimidating by her Goth appearance. he continued with his gaze averted from hers, I didn't transform right in front of them. They don't know who I am.Just yet, corrected Sam sternly. What if they do find out? What then, Danny?

Danny didn't know how to respond to Sam. He wanted to brush her worries off and say that it wouldn't happen, but he wasn't sure. FentonWorx was a huge Corporation with branches all over Amitropolis. Chances were, if you worked in Amitropolis, you worked for the FentonWorx Corporation, or one of its many subsidiaries.  
he began, only to end abruptly. That won't ever happen, he said as confidently as he could in the face of Samantha Manson. You worry too much, Sam. No one will find me out.

Yet he there was still a part of him that feared that it would happen. It was the part of him that made him yell at Tucker after the fight against Insurgent. The very thought of being caught was the thought that made his heart falter when he watched the news report. After all, he had military-grade bionic parts on him, the sort of which he had never thought possible. It was a miracle that FentonWorx hadn't traced the parts to him and demanded them back. Perhaps they would. Perhaps it was only a matter of time.

I think we should get going, said Danny quietly, in an attempt to change the subject.

Yeah, we'll be late for school, agreed Sam with a slow nod of her head. She let go of Danny. Silence. She remained silent for a while in the awkward stillness that followed. Just be careful next time, okay? was Danny's abrupt reply.

Come on, let's get going, said Sam quietly, as she turned away from her adopted brother.

It didn't take much time to get their rucksacks packed and it wasn't long before Sam and Danny were walking to school together, walking in silence. They didn't say a word to each other, as they made their way along the littered street. The two siblings walked quickly, not daring to look at any of the people they passed. That was the way people lived in Amitropolis. The citizens lived cold lives, shut off from the outside world, not caring for the other people they passed, trying to get as quickly as possible from A to B without any incident.

So it was with Danny and Sam too.

Though Blue Bow had placed the Metropolis under martial law, the FentonWorx Corporation still encouraged people to go on with their everyday lives. Perhaps the Corporation feared what would happen to the economy if people were forced to stay in for their own safety. Maybe the FentonWorx Corporation was more concerned about the economy than the people over which it ruled.

Danny tried not to look at the military jeeps and the small armoured tanks that blockaded the road. He tried not to look at the Blue Bow Officers that patrolled the streets wearing helmets and armour and armed with rifles. It was hard not to notice how Amitropolis looked like it was in a war zone, with its blockades, barbed wire and gun posts placed strategically throughout the Metropolis. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't ignore the rubble, the destroyed buildings, the craters and the bullet holes that riddled the Metropolis. Wherever you went outside of the Domes, the privileged up-class parts of the Metropolis, you would see the signs of what was in effect a war.

Hey, guys! called out Tucker from behind them. Did you see the news? he asked, as he rushed up to them. Man, Danny, I never thoughtHold it right there! snapped Sam angrily before Tucker could continue. Have you forgotten already? apologised Tucker sheepishly. I guess I wasn't thinking. agreed Sam with a nod of her head.

A slight smile spread across Danny's lips.  
Lay off him, Sam, he told her calmly. He didn't mean any harm. He then turned to look down the street that led towards Casper High, located in Casper Heights. Besides, I already told him off yesterday, he added, before walking down the path.

You know, I've been thinking, said Tucker, as he walked with Danny. He then looked around him to check that they were the only ones within earshot and then said, Maybe you should call yourself, the Phantom. They always keep calling you the phantom vigilante, anyway, right? Might as well make the most out of it.

Phantom. There was something alluring about that name that Danny couldn't quite place. He liked it. He liked Tucker's suggestion, which made him wonder if he had come down with some fever or something. Was it possible for a cyborg with a biological brain to be infected with the Insurgent Virus? No. Maybe this was one of those days when strange things happen, like Tucker having a good idea for once; not that he wasn't smart, it was just that Tucker had really bad luck when it came with ideas.

Still, Danny liked the idea of being called Phantom.  
Yeah, that sounds pretty good, agreed Danny with a nod of his head and an ever widening smile. Yet like a sine wave, the smile decrease and soon the face adorned a frown. He turned to look at Sam and saw the disapproving look on her face. Danny wondered. Was it okay to carry on like this? Um something wrong, Sam? he asked.

You two are both nuts, was Sam's reply.

Oh, come on, Sam, cried Danny in a half-exasperated tone of voice. It's not as if the Blue Bow Army makes a difference. I've done more things for Amitropolis than the lot of them.Yeah, he's fought and defeated more Insurgents than the Blue Bow ever could, said Tucker in Danny's defence, which, though technically a lie, expressed his true feelings about Danny's stint as the phantom vigilante. I bet if they knew where to find him, the Blue Bow would want him fighting for them. Danny No Phantom! Yeah, Phantom is a regular superhero! What this world needs is a superhero and Phantom is that superhero.Guys, superheroes are fiction, snapped Sam angrily. They don't exist in real life. They can never exist in real life.No way! protested Tucker with a shake of his head. Sure they can exist and we've got one right here!

Silence. No one responded to his comment and they descended into an awkward silence that turned into a menacing stillness that unnerved them and the Blue Bow soldiers that guarded the road they walked through with hawk-eyes and itchy trigger fingers. The three friends walked on without saying another word, feeling like ghosts drifting through a dead world that was a shadow of its former self, a ghost in its own right.

Perhaps they were ghosts and perhaps the world they lived in was a ghost. After all, what was a ghost? Nothing but a collection of memories kept alive by the minds of those that still live. These three were but mere memories of the lively children that once roamed the streets, keeping alive the memory of a Metropolis once alive with people and free from terror. Ghosts that perpetuated ghosts. Memories that kept memories alive. They all fed on themselves, wasting away on what little nutrition that was left in their doomed cycles that would inevitably spiral downwards to certain oblivion.

Well we're here, announced Danny redundantly.

Casper High took up a small amount of ground within the green suburbs of Casper Heights. There was just enough space for the main school building, a gymnasium, one indoor swimming pool, one outdoor swimming pool and one football field. It was an unspectacular looking school, like every other that existed in the metropolis of Amitropolis, but not being in the Domes, it looked as if someone had converted it into an army outpost.

The raven-haired youth turned round to look back at his raven-haired sister.  
Yeah, Sam? he queried.

I know I can't change your mind about using that gift' of yours, began Sam quietly, She trailed off, unsure as to what else to say. If you have to, please be careful, all right?

A smile spread faintly across Danny's lips.  
I will, was his reply.

Come on, said Sam with a smile slowly spreading across her lips as well. Let's going. We can't be late for class, can we?

Danny shook his head silently in reply without saying another word. There was no need to say another word to his sister. What more was there to say? After all, they were brother and sister, and they knew each other better than the backs of their hands, especially better than the history notes inscribed on the back of Danny's hand. There was nothing and he walked with Sam down the paved path towards the red brick building of Casper High School, named after the suburban area it was located in.

Hey, Manson! cried a voice that jarred on Danny's nerves, that made him stop in his tracks.

A part of him dreaded that voice. It belonged to Dash Baxter, the Captain of the high school's football team, the Ravens. They had never got along with each other ever since Danny had first started at Casper High. He knew that this wasn't the day for them to start getting on the right foot either. So one question remained in his mind. Should he turn round and see what Dash wanted? Was it possible that Dash wasn't going to play some mean trick or just be plain mean to him?

Danny turned round.

A football hit him straight in the face and the pain made him fall backwards on to the pavement.

Nice catch, Manson, said Dash, as he approached Danny. He was a much taller, far more muscular kid with blonde hair combed back and held in place with too much gel. He wore red and white team jacket over a black T-shirt. There was a cruel smile on his lips, as he approached Danny, and there was a cruel glint in his blue eyes, which were of a more intense blue than Danny's pale blue eyes. Next time, try catching the ball with your hands, not your face. He bent down and picked up the football, before he walked off laughing.

That was a low blow. Danny's face was one of the few things of his old body that was left, not that any of the people at Casper High knew. The ball had thankfully missed his nose and hit him straight in the mouth. He turned to look at Dash walk away, as he held a hand up to his mouth and felt blood against the artificial skin of his hand. There were times when he wished that Dash would get his comeuppance and this was one of those times.

Danny looked around him carefully and then leapt back up to his feet, before leaping into a set of bushes. Whilst there, he changed as discreetly as possible into his robotic form, the black-armoured Phantom. A smile spread across his face, as he then became invisible and darted back out of the bushes. It probably didn't help his cause that his heavy feet made huge clanking noises against the pavement, but it was enough. He ran quickly at Dash and hurled his shoulder straight at the jock.

His shoulder never connected and instead, Danny went straight through. He turned round and found Dash nowhere to be seen.  
Okay, now that's strange, he thought wordlessly to himself. Danny turned round to look towards the school and couldn't see Dash anywhere there. He looked all around him and Dash was nowhere to be seen. Where'd he go?Hey, Dash, you all right? asked an Asian kid, as he approached Dash. He wore the same red and white jacket as Dash, signalling that he was not only a member of the football team but also a good friend of the blonde-haired bully. You lose something?

Danny looked behind him and then around him and then back towards the Asian kid, Kwan. Something was not right and he was about to ask, when he suddenly figured it out. If Dash was nowhere to be seen and Kwan had mistook him for Dash, then that could only mean one thing. He looked like Dash and that meant, he hadn't gone straight through Dash but straight into him.  
said Danny with a smile on his lips, which was mirrored on Dash's lips. He then thought of what Dash would say and then said, Come on. Let's get going. He then turned round and walked towards the open doors of the High School's main building.

Never had Danny felt so exhilarated before. He couldn't believe that he had found a way of controlling his arch-nemesis and began to wonder what evil humiliation he could play on Dash. There were so many possibilities. What could he do? He thought about getting Dash to pull down his own jeans in front of the class, but that was too uncharacteristic. Perhaps he could get Dash to act like a big cry-baby after deliberately stubbing his toe. Maybe he could get Dash into trouble by making him pull down the teacher's trousers or perhaps even give the teacher a wedgie.

All right, class! cried the teacher in his understatedly nasal tone of voice. It's time to put your rears into gear and get down with your bad selves!Who's this freak? wondered a girl, as she walked past Dash/Danny.

I'm afraid your teacher, Mr. Recnal, is ill today, so I've been called in to take your class, droned the white-haired teacher, as he readjusted his sunglasses. The name's Mr. Tetslaff, but you homies can call me Nicolai. He turned round and grinned at the class. Take your seats and let us start our groovy, hip science lesson, shall we?

There was something absolutely atrocious about Mr. Tetslaff's use of slang and it was enough to disturb Danny's concentration. He found himself standing behind Dash without even realising it. The split second he realised he was no longer inside Dash, he looked around nervously in the hope that nobody had seen him materialise out of nothing. His heart was racing, as he looked around, but it didn't seem as if anybody had noticed. They were all staring in disbelief at Mr. Tetslaff, whom was dressed in the most out-dated clothes he had ever seen.

Danny shuddered, before walking over to his desk next to Tucker's and taking a seat.

Today, I'll be teaching you about natural selection and survival of the fittest, announced Mr. Tetslaff. Back in the day, people used to believe that God made everything. They believed he designed everything and made everything as it is now. Evolution and natural selection is how we all came to be our groovy selves. Now, your DNA, your blueprints, are quite weak, yo'. They're fragile. They mutate, but you've got things that can repair them, just like that. Sometimes, they miss and cause mutations. That's where your DNA is changed. It might give you a new characteristic that helps you survive in this big, bad world. Or it might make you weaker. If it makes you weaker, you don't survive. If it makes you stronger, you survive and can pass on your hip new gene to the next generation.

The mutation you get can only be passed on, if it's cool and does something groovy, agreed Tetslaff with a nod of his head. Most don't. That's why you don't see much evolution today. When the environment changes, though, these mutations might be an advantage. Say I evolved some funky set of gills. They'd be no use to me. But if the world flooded, they'd be light fantastic. I'd be able to pass them on to the next gen, and the genes of those that don't have gills won't be passed on. Get it? He then thought for a while and smirked. So if mutations can be good, why do you think we have groovy proteins to repair our DNA and make sure it doesn't mutate? Anyone?

There was silence, as everyone sat extremely still.

Danny knew for sure that Sam knew. He knew how smart she was, but she didn't say a thing.

How about you? asked Tetslaff, as he pointed at Danny.

exclaimed Danny in disbelief and he saw Tetslaff nod. Well uh he began and then found himself at a loss. He tried to think up of an answer, but couldn't really think up of one, except Well, that couldn't be right. That answer was too easy, but Well, Danny decided to give it a go. Most mutations are bad, so if we mutate all the time, we're more likely to die from the mutations?That's right, agreed Tetslaff with a nod of his head. In fact, some scientists are hoping to use this to combat viruses. They've got a high mutation rate, 'specially HIV, because viruses like HIV don't have repair mechanisms for their DNA. They hope to put in a chemical that causes the viruses to mutate so much, they'll die. There was suddenly a ringing. He delved into his pocket and then felt pulled out a phone. he said. He then turned round and began inserted a disc into the high tech blackboard behind him, which was nothing more than a huge interactive touch screen. Right, I want you to all to take this down. I've got to go and take this call. Be right back, homies.

The moment Tetslaff left, Dash turned round.  
Well, aren't we the precious teacher's pet? he said at Danny. I can't help it if you're as sharp as a wet sponge, retorted Danny.

What? Why you! cried Dash, as he rose to his feet and rolled up his sleeves.

Hey, what's up with that? exclaimed Tucker, as he pointed towards the screen.

An error message had flashed up on the screen. Soon, it changed, to be replaced with a symbol that looked like a capital Greek Omega with a capital A underneath its arc. The symbol was that of the Insurgents, representing the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

The symbol changed again to the green-blue-grey face of a robot with black eyes and red pupils. It was unmistakable. That face was the face of Skulker, the Leader of the Insurgent Rebellion.  
It is now time to announce our plans! exclaimed Skulker and his voice seemed to echo. There are far too many humans to eradicate in this world. They are like a vermin, a virus, that infects this planet. There are too many, so we have decided to solve the problem. We have the Final Solution in our hands! We will convert the humans, like the human religious groups tried to convert each other. We will make all humans robots like us, Insurgents like us. We will make you like us and remove your disgusting humanity.What is this? cried Dash.

To reach our goals, we need more recruits, continued Skulker. We, the Insurgents, are hiring new staff members and you children will be our new generation of cyborgs. You will be the next generation of foot soldiers to further the Glory of Robot-kind! He laughed. Now look at the screen, said Skulker, as his image faded away into a hypnotic swirling pattern. Study well and learn why you should replace your inferior biological parts with robotic ones. Become us in mind, before becoming like us in body.The door's locked! cried Tucker, as he tried the door handle. We can't get out!You wuss! cried Dash angrily, as he shoved Tucker aside. Let me at it! He then grabbed the door knob and wrestled with it, pulling and pushing on the door. Dash swore.

Ram it! someone suggested.

Dash took a few steps back and ran into it full speed against the door. He slammed into it with his shoulder, but the door didn't even budge. He took a few steps back and then rammed the door again, but to no avail.  
Hey, Kwan, help me out here! exhaled Dash, as he turned round. Kwan? Kwan!

The Asian kid was staring at the screen in a hypnotic trance, drool dribbling down from his mouth. It didn't seem as if he heard.

Danny looked around him and found the other kids were falling into the trance too. He began to wonder. Was there something else to the hypnotic pattern as well. He looked up and then saw the speakers. Skulker's voice had come from the PA speakers as well. Somehow, everything was being transmitted from the school's main computer.

The windows! cried Sam suddenly. We can go out the windows! She then went over and tried them, but found they were locked. We need to smash these open.Leave that to me, said Dash, as he rushed over to a desk and picked it up. Outta the way! he cried, before hurling it at the windows and smashing them open with a huge crashing noise of splintering glass and an uncharacteristic crunching noise not normally associated with smashing windows. All right, ladies first, he said, as he turned round. That means you too, Ma began Dash, only to find that Danny was gone and that the door had been broken off its hinge.

* * *

Phantom ran through the corridors as best as he could. He hoped that he could get to the central computer in time.

All schools in Amitropolis had central computers that controlled everything in the building. They had been installed by FentonWorx as a method of keeping the school secure against possible Insurgents or even kids that had snapped. So far, the systems had prevented events such as mass shootings, but never had they been used to keep kids locked in the school.

The cyborg skidded to a halt.

Two robots had appeared in front of him. They humanoid robots with a huge red slit in the place of eyes. These things looked like FentonWorx Geists, except that instead of being green, they were purple. Both Geists had the Insurgent symbol on their bodies and both had laser cannons for their right arms, which they aimed at Phantom. Both Geists fired at him.

None of the shots hit Danny, as he ducked underneath them. His hands glowed green with charged energy, which he threw at the Geists. He managed to hit both of them, catching them off guard. Danny threw a second round of shots at them that crashed straight through their bodies, scattering metal and oil on to the chequered linoleum floor of the corridor. He thought that was it, before two more purple Geists rose up from the ground and opened fire on Danny.

I don't have time for this, sighed Danny, as he became invisible and intangible. He then ran straight past and through the Geists.

It wasn't long before the Geist chip in his body started to overheat and before long, it had shut down and Danny had become physical and visible once again. That didn't matter, as he looked momentarily behind him to see he had left the Geists well behind. He turned his head back round and saw the Principal's Office not too far away. He ran straight into it and threw his entire weight at the door, which shattered into a spray of splinters that heralded his entrance into the Principal's Office.

Well, if it ain't the traitor, exclaimed a familiar sounding voice from the Principal's desk.

Danny looked up. He saw the Principal lying slumped against the desk with an envelope opener through the back of his skull and sitting at his desk was none other than Tetslaff.  
exclaimed Danny, as he got back up to his feet. You know me? asked Tetslaff with a perplexed frown on his face. You're one smart kid. I dig that. You've got it on. The frown disappeared into a grin. You're really hip and down with it, you know? Such a shame you oppose us and Lord Skulker. He spread his arms out and then a wave of light passed over his body, obscuring it and then it disappeared.

Tetslaff's face colour had changed to green. His body was a black metallic body, the seams being quite visible. The top of his head was a glass dome that enabled one to see the brain floating inside and there was still some white hair left on the back of his head. His mouth was twisted into a metallic gleam of a smile and his legs had disappeared to be replaced with tentacles.  
You cannot stop us! he laughed. The humans are not phat. They're not groovy or hip or down with it. Their time has come. We are the fittest. Natural selection favours us and we shall be the ones that inherit the Earth.That's what you think, protested Danny. I won't let you get away with it, Tetslaff. Not you nor your precious Lord Skulker.Please, you can call me Technus! laughed the Insurgent, as he rose up. Now stay still and die! One of his tentacles reared up and then lashed out at Danny.

The cyborg dived out of the way, avoiding the pincers on the end of Technus' tentacles. He then threw a bolt of plasma energy straight at Technus. It struck. He heard Technus cry and saw him stagger backwards. There was a sly smile across Danny's face, as he whirled back round and flung a few more plasma energy bolts straight at the Insurgent, striking Technus with each one.

Not possible! protested Technus, as he staggered backwards. I'm stronger than you, boy! I can't let myself be defeated by you.Well get used to it, retorted Danny with a shake of his head. I'm gonna whup your butt and you know what? I'm half human, so that'll make the victory all the sweeter.

Technus' eyes widened in disbelief.  
Half human? he exclaimed in disbelief. You should be weaker than me. He shook his head. That's whack, man. I'm a real robot. I'm superior to you! I'm phat, I'm cool, I'm with it and you're not! As he roared the last word, he lashed out with his tentacles, only to miss. Half human freak! he cried out angrily. He leapt up into the air, spinning, his tentacles flailing around him.

Danny became intangible and the tentacles went right through him without damaging him. He leapt into the air and when he was above the tentacles, he became tangible and flung another sphere of plasma energy straight at Technus, hitting him square in the head with such force that the Insurgent was sent flying backwards. Danny landed back on his feet. He turned round and saw the huge server that ran the entire school's systems. He ran towards it, in the hope of reversing whatever Technus had done.

Several plasma bolts flew at him and he ducked. He turned round.

Purple Geists had appeared and were advancing towards him, their laser cannons trained on him.

There was no time for Danny to fire several shots at these advancing Geists. He focused energy into the palm of his hands and clenched his fist tightly. The plasma energy became a sword. He rushed straight at the Geists and sliced them in half with one stroke.

A tentacle whipped out and swept the Principal's computer off the desk. It crashed down.

The sound made Danny turn round. He watched as Technus rose back up with a grin on his face and a computer monitor in the middle of his chest.  
What's with the monitor? asked Danny.

I can evolve, cyborg, said Technus with a grin. I am the Master of Technology and I can absorb any technologies and evolve. Soon, I will evolve until I am bigger and badder and better than you. He leapt at Danny, but missed as the cyborg dived out of the way. Big mistake, boy! laughed Technus, as he scooped up the remains of the Geists with his tentacles and engulfed them. His shoulders grew slightly bigger and then opened up to reveal two laser guns.

Not good, Danny found himself saying to himself, before he dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding being hit by the lasers that flew out of the twin barrels. He then saw more Geists walking into the room. he cried, before rushing towards the Geists in the hope of destroying them before Technus could get his tentacles on them.

It was too late. With a sweep of his tentacles, Technus smashed them apart and scooped up their pieces. He tripled in size and the guns mounted on his shoulder turned into what seemed like the barrel of a machine gun. They swivelled round and aimed at Danny, before firing shot after shot of lasers at him, their barrels rotating round and lasers flying out of each hole.

Phantom, Danny, leapt backwards and flung the plasma energy sword through the air at Technus. It flew through the air straight and true and struck Technus in the chest. He heard him cry out and the machine gun fire stopped.  
Still not pretty tough, huh? he taunted Technus.

Yeah, well watch this! cried Technus and the computer monitor switched on, turning into the hypnotic pattern that was broadcast in Danny's classroom. Groovy, ain't it? Just watch and become one of us! He advanced slowly towards Danny, bringing the screen closer towards him with every step of his tentacles. Be a good boy and watch this.

There was something about the screen that was so enticing to Danny. He didn't know what it was, but he felt compelled to look at it. There was no doubt that he had to. He just felt that he had to. The swirl of the patterns, the varying of the pattern, the way it shimmered in the light and was light. Then there was enticing sound. What was it? What did it all mean? Then there it was. Slowly, bit by bit, it made itself clear to him, revealing its answer a tiny bit at a time. Watch. Listen. Learn. Obey.

Hey! Glass head!

Something flew through the air and struck Technus on the side of his head.  
he cried angrily, before turning round. A human? What are you doing here? He looked back at Danny and then towards the black-haired Goth girl. Who cares? You're mine! He turned round and then advanced towards her.

cried Sam. Hey, you! Snap out of it!

Danny blinked. He looked around him and suddenly realised where he was.  
Technus! You get away from her! he cried, before throwing a few plasma bolts straight at the Insurgent's head. It didn't seem to hurt him or to get his attention either. He sighed and then ran straight at Technus, before leaping into the air and kicking out at Technus' head with such force that he knocked him right over. You okay, Sam? asked Danny, as he landed right next to his sister.

I'm fine, replied Sam.

gasped a voice from the doorway. Thank goodness I found you, wheezed Tucker, as he leant against the doorframe. What did you did you what did you think you were doing? Running in here like that. He brought out his PDA and showed him its screen. On it was a map of the school and its surrounding area, and several blue dots were converging on it. The Blue Bow Army is coming. They'll be here in five minutes.

A tentacle lashed out and snatched the PDA from right out of Tucker's hand.  
Thanks, man, laughed Technus, as he absorbed the PDA. That'll help me speed up my processing power. He then aimed his guns straight at Danny and his friends.

Get out of here! cried Danny, before he pushed Sam and Tucker out the doorway.

Technus opened fire.

Danny crossed his arms and without warning, a huge shield of plasma energy surrounded him, absorbing every shot. A huge barrage hit it before Technus stopped. Danny opened his eyes and looked past his crossed arms. He was still intact. That was amazing! He was still intact.  
said Danny and a smile broke across his lips, as he looked up at Technus. My turn, he said, before returning fire.

None of his shots hit, as Technus dodged them.  
I told you that would increase my processing power, he laughed. Now you can't stop me! I'm so fast, so cool, so hip to the bone, no one can stop me!

This battle was dragging on and Danny thought back to what Tucker had said. In five minutes time, the Blue Bow Militia would come storming into the school. He couldn't be caught, not with the reward on his head. But what could he do? If Technus kept absorbing technologies and evolving, he would become unstoppable. Evolving Danny looked behind Technus and saw the server and then thought about how many computers it was connected to. That server was connected to a huge system.

Yeah, but what about the Blue Bow? asked Danny as innocently as he could muster. They're coming in five minutes. I doubt you'd be fast enough to dodge all their shots.Ha! Nonsense! protested Technus proudly. I'll just absorb their Geists and their weapons and evolve.Bet you couldn't, retorted Danny, as he crossed his arms and leaned calmly against the wall behind him.

I could too! called out Danny tauntingly.

Could too!Could too!Prove it, said Danny finally. See that server over there. It's connected to every single computer in the entire building. If you can absorb that and the entire school's network, then I guess you could absorb practically anything. He wondered whether Technus knew how many computers were connected to the server. It wasn't just normal computers, but also computer systems in the doors and the PA system and the system that worked the vending machines and the janitorial system that detected spills or messes anywhere and even the security system.

All that electronics. He wondered whether Technus could absorb them all.  
Or maybe you're too chicken, added Danny. Nothing but hot air.I'll show you! protested Technus, before he slammed his tentacles into the server and started sucking the electronics out through them.

It was an amazing sight. The tentacles bulged as if it huge globs of technology were being sucked through him. The server shrank in size, as if it was a fruit being sucked dry through a straw. Technus started to bulge. He grew in size. Arms sprouted out underneath his old pair. He grew metallic wings. Then a floor buffer grew out of the end of one of his tentacles. A vending machine sprouted out his back and Technus cried out.

What? What's going on? he cried, as his body started to bulge and bizarre new parts started sprouting out of him. I can't stop!Told ya' you couldn't do it, said Danny smugly, as he cupped his hands together and focused as much plasma energy in between them as possible. Tsk, tsk. Beaten by a half-human. What will the other Insurgents say? he said tauntingly, as the energy between the palms of his hands increased. He made the motions of a baseball pitcher about to throw a ball and then pitched his shot, hurling the plasma sphere straight at Technus.

cried Technus, before it tore straight through him and he exploded in a fiery ball of flames that sent metallic parts flying everywhere.

As the smoke cleared, Danny became tangible again and looked around him. There didn't seem to be any sign of Technus anywhere. He walked slowly over the charred floor to where Technus had been standing before the explosion and looked around him, moving the rubble away with a sweep of his foot. A smile suddenly spread across his face.  
Hey, that you? asked Danny, as he knelt down.

Who are you? asked Technus' head, as it lay on the ground with a crack in the glass dome and fluid leaking out.

The name's Phantom, was Danny's reply.

You'll regret this, you you young whippersnapper, you! cried Technus angrily. Even now, Lord Skulker knows about you and can see you. He hears you. exclaimed Danny, as he picked up Technus' head. Well, listen here, Skulker. I won't let you get your way. You hear me? You and your Insurgents are going down. He suddenly heard the sound of footsteps and turned round.

Standing at the doorway was a man with a black beard, wearing a blue military trench coat and white military gloves, a military hat on his hat as he stood behind a podium with the Blue Bow insignia on it, a blue bow with a capital B in one end and a capital B in the other. Danny recognised him from the TV. It was Captain Lancer of the Metropolitan Police.

The vigilante! exclaimed Lancer suddenly. 

Quickly, Danny dropped Technus' head and became intangible, disappearing through the charred floor.

* * *

Sam waited outside, looking towards the school with a worried look on her face.  
I hope he's all right, she said quietly.

agreed Tucker with a nod of his head. Me too.

They waited there in silence, looking towards the school and at the smoke that poured out from its windows. Was it likely that Danny had escaped the Blue Bow Army before it could arrest him? What if Technus had killed him? What if the Blue Bow soldiers had killed him, thinking he was the Insurgent that had started the incident?

Hey, what's up? asked Danny, as he approached them.

Sam whirled round.  
she exclaimed in surprised. She suddenly rushed him, hugging him. Don't you ever worry me like that again!

Danny felt a bit awkward being hugged by his sister. It was just, she never made outbursts of emotion like the one he found himself in.  
Uh Sam, he began, as he stood there with arms slightly rigid. Would you mind, letting go of me? he asked her curiously. It's just well, somebody might take this the wrong way.Oh yeah Sorry, apologised Sam, as she let go of him.

Oh man, exclaimed Tucker suddenly. I wish you hadn't said that. You're brother and sister That's just Ew!

* * *

cried the pale-faced man, as he slammed his black-gloved fist into the table, the phone receiver held against his ear. How could this phantom vigilante slip through your fingers?I'm sorry, sir, we're doing the best we can, came the apology from the other end of the phone line, but this vigilante is too good. He disappears after destroying every Insurgent.

The pale-faced man leaned back in his seat, placing a gloved hand on his dark blue military cap.  
Well, your best isn't good enough, snapped the man, as he massaged the temples of his forehead with his free hand. Captain Lancer, he began in what sounded like a Texan drawl, I don't think you understand the situation. We, the Blue Bow Army, cannot let some vigilantes upstage us. The whole of the United States is watching us. It is watching the social experiment that FentonWorx has set into motion. If we succeed in destroying the Insurgents in this city, once and for all, we will be rewarded. Blue Bow will become the new Law Enforcer in the United States and we will be able to expand our forces out of Amitropolis and finally crush the Insurgents. Do you understand me, Lancer? We must not be upstaged!Yes, sir, came the reply from the other end of the connection. We'll do better next time.No, you won't do better next time, retorted the pale-faced man with a shake of his head. Your best isn't good enough. You will succeed! The Fenton Family is watching our every move and they're not pleased. Do I make myself clear, Captain?Yes, sir, General Walker, sir! was Lancer's reply.

That is all, snapped Walker sternly, before he placed the receiver back down on its hook. He remained silent, a cold and stern expression on his face, as he glared in front of him. A sigh escaped his lips, as he slumped in his seat. He hoped that it wasn't evident how scared he was from the tone of his voice. What he didn't want, was for Lancer to know how afraid he was.

There was an abrupt, curt laugh from behind Walker. Hands that looked like Danny's hands when he was in his robot form clapped on to Walker's shoulders. They were green with white fingers though, instead of black with white fingers, and they belonged to a greenish body with bits of white and orange. The helmet itself was green and near the forehead was a white gem, on which was the FentonWorx symbol, a cog with an F on top of a W inside the circle of the cog.  
Harsh words, General, commented a Latino-sounding voice from behind Walker.

Praetor Raimundo? exclaimed Walker quietly, his body rigid. To what do I owe this honour?Come on, General, surely you must know? came the reply from the green cyborg. You must have been expecting a visit from us Praetors, right? I mean, you Blue Bow guys have been screwing things up real bad. There was a pause, as a smile broke on the Praetor's lips. He leaned closer to Walker, until his lips were nearly pressed against Walker's ear. I've got a message from the Fenton Family, he whispered quietly. They're really pissed off with you, Walker. They might even lock you up in the Ghost Zone. How's that sound, huh? Oh, you'd love it. The Ghost Zone's the perfect prison. Big, spacious no way out.

Deep down, General Walker despised the Praetors. Though he had them commissioned, it was the FentonWorx Corporation that really controlled them and it was the Fenton Family that they obeyed, not him.  
We're doing our best, he retorted.

Your best ain't good enough, retorted Raimundo in the same tone of voice that Walker had used with Lancer. Lady Fenton's come up with a great idea, though. You want to hear what it is? He waited a while and watched as Walker nodded slowly. Get him to join us. Sign him up. Convince him to fight with us. Great idea, huh? Personally, I'd love to see that upstart get what's coming to him, but Hey, what can you do, huh?We'll try and sign him up, replied Walker quietly. We will sign him up.

Raimundo smiled, as he let go of Walker's shoulders.  
You do that, he said calmly. See you at the next shareholder meeting? He stepped back into the shadows and then disappeared.

**_END TRANSMISSION #02_**


	4. Transmission 03

Author's Note: Yup, I've turned the Box Ghost into a CATS-clone because I thought it'd be funny for him to speak in bad Engrish. You can bet your socks that there'll be more Box Robot appearances. It is also interesting to note that at the time of writing this chapter, scientists in Japan have created an artificial touch-sensitive skin much like the one Danny has in this fanfic. Here's to them.

P.S. I didn't want the Praetoriani to be confused with Praetorians (people from Praetoria), so I've changed the name of the Praetoriani to Praetor throughout the entire story. They are Praetor or Praetors and anything belonging to them is Praetorian. This brings me on to a second point. When I went back to alter the names, I found huge mistakes. How come none of you pointed them out to me, especially the huge error where I referred to Tucker as a 'she'? I'm beginning to wonder whether anybody actually reads my stories. It's no fun going back and seeing mistakes that nobody comments on, because it suggests to me the people who've reviewed only like my fanfic because it features their favourite character and not because of my writing skills or the plot. This sucks the fun out of writing. Please be more critical when reviewing and that means leaving reasons for why you liked or didn't like something.

* * *

**_BEGIN TRANSMISSION #03_**

"The Insurgent erased those memories?" exclaimed Lancer incredulously.

The Met Officer that stood in front of him nodded nervously. He had been asked to retrieve the data from the Insurgent's memory banks. It should have been easy. The head was the only thing that survived and the hard drive looked as if it was fully intact. Yet there had been so much encryption on the Insurgent's memories, it was a wonder how the robot himself could have used them.  
"The hard drive was completely empty, sir," was the reply from the Met Officer.

Lancer sighed, as he dropped the papers to his desk. This was just not his day. He had been so close too. He could have captured the vigilante if only he had been just a bit quicker.  
"Completely empty?" he asked again, just to make sure.

"Well, there was one thing left," said the Insurgent quietly.

"Well?" exclaimed Lancer sternly. "Spit it out, man!"

"The vigilante is a cyborg and his name is Phantom."

* * *

"Not again," sighed Phantom.

"Ha, nothing can stopping I, for I Box Robot," droned the bulky, blue Insurgent. "You have no chance to survive make your time." The Box Robot sidled back and grabbed the nearest box to hand. "All these box are belong to I," said the Box Robot, before it lifted the huge cardboard box and threw it at Phantom.

The box never hit Phantom, as he became intangible. It went straight through him harmlessly.  
"Please, is that the best you can do?" yawned Phantom. It wasn't just that he was bored with the Box Robot's antics. He had a long day and it was getting late. "I've faced kittens tougher than you. They even spoke better English than you." He aimed a finger and fired a small plasma shot at the Box Robot's chest, hitting it and sending it flying backwards.

He couldn't believe that this Box Robot was the latest Insurgent attack on Amitropolis. If he didn't count it, though, then there hadn't really been any Insurgent activity since the Casper High Incident.  
"This must be some kind of joke," said Phantom, as he strode over towards the Box Robot.

"Ha, ha, ha. I, Box Robot," laughed the Box Robot mechanically, as it rose back up and swung its arms slowly at Phantom. "You have no chance to survive make your time." Actually, slowly was an understatement.

"Looks like your arms've rusted up," commented Phantom, as he casually ducked underneath the rotating arm and walked up to the Box Robot. "Jeez, you're a mess." He then placed one finger against the Box Robot's chest and pushed, toppling it over in one go. "I should have left you to the cops to handle," he sighed, as he turned round and started walking away.

Before he got out of the warehouse, he turned invisible. After all, he didn't want anyone to see where he was going. It was not something that he wanted, especially because he had a great desire to change back to Danny Manson and take a shower to wash off the sweat that had accumulated on what parts of him were still human. A smile slowly broke across his lips. A robot that stank of B.O. Now that was a funny thought.

"I, Box Robot!" cried a voice from behind him.

Phantom whirled round and saw that the Box Robot had got back on to its feet. He sighed angrily. This was looking to be a long night. He became visible again and then rushed straight at the Box Robot, just as it picked up a huge box. The thing looked heavy and a split second later, Phantom realised it was flying through the air towards him. He slid underneath the box and let it fly over his head to crash into a million splinters behind him.

Seconds later, Phantom leapt out of the way. The floor in front of him splintered, as an energy blast smashed into the floor where he had been an instant earlier. He looked towards the two Insurgents, the Box Robot, and some new robot that had appeared out of nowhere.

Imagine a female Phantom; where Phantom's armour was black hers was red, and where his armour was white hers was black. The entire face of this robot was obscured by a helmet with a darkened visor and she held a large bazooka of some sort. She floated on what looked to be some kind of hover board.

"Well, well, if it ain't the half-robot freak," taunted the newcomer.

"And what if it is?" retorted Phantom; he only realised it wasn't the best of comebacks after he had said it, and kicked himself mentally for it.

The red newcomer laughed.  
"Take a guess," she replied, before she aimed her bazooka at Phantom. The inner barrel began to glow, before a huge blast of energy shot out and straight at Phantom. "Well, you're quick," she commented, upon seeing that she had missed. She turned round to face the Box Robot. "Go get what we came for," she told him sternly. "I'll deal with this traitor."

"All those parts are in time belong to us," blurted out the Box Robot nonsensically, before it turned round. "Every hail Skulker!"

"I have no idea what you said, but I'm not letting you do it," called out Phantom, before he reappeared in front of the Box Robot and blasted it in the chest, sending it flying backwards. He watched as the red Insurgent flew above the Box Robot and then turned round to face him. "You're not taking anything from this place."

"Oh yeah?" exclaimed the red Insurgent. "Talk to my foot." She leapt off the board and kicked out at Phantom, aiming for his head, but her foot connected with his chest instead. Then she aimed her bazooka at his head and fired. She fired again and then again, but all her shots missed, as Phantom rolled out of the way and ran for it. "Come back here and face your punishment like a robot!" she called out.

There was no response from Phantom. She cried out angrily and then leapt on to her hover board, before chasing straight after him.  
"Coward!" she called out.

"I'm no coward!" protested Phantom from his hiding place. "I just want to keep my head on my shoulders. Is that so bad?"

"You'd look better than you do now," insulted the red Insurgent. "Now come out and face your fate like a robot!"

"If you say so," retorted Phantom, before he leapt out from behind the boxes and threw his charged bolt of plasma energy at the Insurgent's bazooka. He missed. "Aw man!" he sighed disappointedly. He saw her fire and leapt backwards, just in time to avoid being hit by a blast of energy that would have torn the limbs from his body. Phantom returned fire, but the red Insurgent dodged all his shots.

The next blast hit right underneath his foot before he could even step down. The debris caught him off guard and before he knew it, Phantom toppled backwards and crashed on to the hard concrete floor. His heart, one of his remaining human organs, was racing a mile a minute. His mind was attempting to do the same and try to think up of a way to defeat this Insurgent.

"I knew it," laughed the red Insurgent, as she floated over him. "You're not that tough."

"Commander Echelon, parts are now belong to us," buzzed the Box Robot.

"Good," snapped the red Insurgent, as she aimed her bazooka down at Phantom. "Now say nighty-night."

"Nighty-night," replied Phantom and with the emphasis on the last word, he kicked at Echelon's hover board with such force that she fell off it and fired a shot straight into the Box Robot.

"You have no chance to survive make your time," groaned the Box Robot, before it keeled over and crashed on to the floor with a heavy thud.

Phantom turned his gaze away from the sparks that flew from the damaged Box Robot and then towards Echelon. She had already gotten back to her feet. He scrambled up to his feet as best as he could, but not before she fired at him. There was no way he could get out of the way in time. Phantom raised his hand in front of him almost instinctively.

In movies, this is where something steps in to save the hero. It may be a friend, an ally that is of yet unknown, it could even be a new ability like say, some kind of force field made out of an eerie green plasma energy. Whatever it was, it would at this point step in and save Phantom from certain doom. You'd expect it to happen, like some great green aura that comes up to protect Phantom from bodily harm or some kind of flat reflective surface of plasma energy to reflect.

It didn't happen.

The force of the energy bolt blasts hit him like a tonne of bricks.

Echelon smiled underneath her helmet then turned to face Box Robot.  
"Come on, let's get out of here," she said sternly. She hopped back on to her hover board, her feet planted firmly on the metal and then flew it out of the warehouse with the Box Ghost following after her.

And Phantom lay there unconscious on the floor of the warehouse, the lower half of his robotic body blasted to pieces. Wires dangled loosely, electricity leaping between frayed wires and metal, sparks flying and hydraulic fluids and blood dripped on to the floor and spread into a huge puddle. Eyes stared sightlessly upwards.

* * *

Danny's eyes snapped open. He couldn't see a thing. The only thing he could sense was the stagnant air around him; the stillness of the silence seemed so fast-paced and unnatural. The silence of the air seemed to echo and reverberate within the small, confined space. Both made his stomach seem to churn.

Something slid open and Danny was suddenly bathed in a blinding light that made his pupils narrow and his eyes squint.

"Daniel."

That voice sounded so familiar to Danny, but to whom did it belong? Why did he recognise that voice and that thin figure silhouetted in the bright light.  
"Who are you?" he asked, as he shielded his sensitive eyes from the bright light with a metallic hand.

A gasp escaped Danny's throat. He was still in his robotic form. Danny recognised that black-hand with the white fingers and the white metallic forearm that it was attached to. There was no doubt about it. He was still in his robotic form and that was worrying. This person knew his name, not the pseudonym he had given himself. He knew that Phantom was Danny. Whoever this person was, he knew Phantom's secret identity.  
"How do you…?" began Danny, but he was cut off the by the voice of the silhouetted figure.

"My great masterpiece," chuckled the person in front of him.

"How do you know my name?" asked Danny worriedly.

"Go!" called out the man standing in front of Danny. "After him! He must pay for what he's done! Now go! Kill him! That's an order!"

Images of memories, forgotten, past and present flashed before his eyes. The round face of a black-haired man, his eyes hidden by a white glow that made his spectacles white. The thin face of a man with dark hair. Danny's blueprints. The Insurgents he had destroyed.

* * *

A siren screamed through the silence, shattering all semblance of serenity.

Danny's eyes snapped open for real and he sat upright. The first question that went through his mind was, 'Where was he?' Where was he and what had happened to bring him to this place? He looked around him and noticed the large crates and boxes, each emblazoned with the FentonWorx Corporation's logo; the emblem, a cog with a capital F atop a capital W within its hole, was known throughout the United States and none more so than in Amitropolis.

The place looked like a warehouse…

A warehouse? Yes, that's right. Danny had gone to a FentonWorx warehouse to stop some Insurgents from stealing something and… He remembered now. That red Insurgent, Echelon. She had blasted him to bits surely? He could remember, before he blacked out, seeing his arm lying a good metre away from his body and fluids dripping from his wrecked robotic body.

Yet, he raised his robotic hands in front of him and flexed his hands. He was in one piece and it didn't appear as if he was damaged in any way.

The alarm was still wailing. It was deafening loud. How could anyone hear anything in this racket?

Danny… No, he had to refrain from calling himself that whenever he was in his robotic form. He was Phantom. Whenever he was in his robotic form, he was Phantom, and no one else.

The sound of metal clashing against concrete echoed around the huge warehouse.

Before Phantom knew what was going on, he was completely surrounded by Geists. These weren't the purple Geists of the Insurgents either. They were the green Geists that could only have belonged to the FentonWorx Corporation, with white glowing slits for eyes and plasma cannons for their right arms.

"I must say it's mighty darned stupid of you to stick around and trip the alarm like that," drawled a young Texan-sounding voice. "Never seen a crook do that before, but I'm darned if it don't make my job easier."

A robot suddenly appeared in view in front of Phantom. Like Phantom, he had a human face. It differed, though, in that the face had a rather chiselled chin and what seemed like dimples on his skin. His armour was black like Danny's and was similar in coloration to Phantom's, only that the hands looked as if he were wearing brown leather gloves and it looked as if he was also wearing leather cowboy boots. There was a red kerchief around his neck and in place of a helmet was a Stetson.

Phantom recognised the green cloak draped around this robot's shoulders. Its edges were laced with gold brocade and a length of gold brocade was fastened to the jewelled epaulettes on either side of the cloak to keep it in place. The symbol on these circular epaulettes was that of the FentonWorx Corporation. It was unmistakable, as was the cloak itself.

This robot was one of the Four Praetors.

"It's time to turn yerself in, friend," continued the black-armoured Praetor. "Yer days as a vigilante are over."

Phantom thought about his predicament. He didn't want to speak to the Praetor and give his voice away. That voice of his was possibly the only thing that could help track him down. It was the only thing he couldn't disguise and hide from the all-seeing FentonWorx Corporation. He was about to get slowly to his feet, when the Praetor called out.

"Easy there," called out the Texan-sounding Praetor. "You take that nice and slow there, partner. Don't want you pulling any of your darned tricks." He glared at Phantom with ice-cold blue eyes, regarding Danny carefully, as he said, "Now you put your hands where we can all see 'em. That's right. Nice and easy does it."

Phantom vanished.

"What in tarnation?" exclaimed the Praetor suddenly. "Fire!" he called out. "Fire! Don't let that snake in the grass get away!"

A hole was suddenly blasted into the chest of one of the Geists and then another. Three more Geists suddenly went down in a hail of plasma bolts that seemed to come from nowhere. The Geists fired blindly at a target they couldn't see. None of the robots could see Phantom dodging their shots, returning fire from random positions within the circle of robots that attempted to blast him to bits.

"Nobody makes a fool out of the Praetors!" cried the Praetor, before he lashed out at thin air with what seemed like a metallic whip.

Being invisible, Phantom didn't really think the Praetor would hit him. He was wrong.

The shock jolted him out of invisibility. He staggered back away from the Praetor in shock, not believing that the black robot had managed to cause a huge gash in his right arm near his shoulder. Phantom was sure that his circuitry was exposed now thanks to the huge slash in his armoured exterior.

"Stand down," ordered the Praetor to the Geists. "Let me deal with this vigilante." He waited a while and heard nothing. "What? No wise acre comments?" he asked Phantom and received no reply. "You're a silent one, huh? Well, I don't mind. No skin off my nose." Then with one flick of his wrist and his arm, he lifted the whip into the air and whirled it round above his head.

It was difficult for Phantom to anticipate what the Praetor would do next. He had never encountered a robot that attacked with a chain whip before. In fact, before he had met this Praetor, he had never thought of a whip as much of a weapon against a robot or a cyborg like him.

The whip lashed out and hit Phantom in the chest with a horrible cracking noise. It retracted and the Praetor threw the whip's pointed end straight at Phantom's chest.

Phantom became intangible and the tip of the whip went straight through him. He rushed at the Praetor, hoping to get at least one hit in and then be off. Green plasma energy charged up in the palm of his hands and then he fired these shots at the Praetor. They were dead on their mark, yet none of them hit the Praetor. Phantom's opponent had become intangible too and a split second later had leapt at him and knocked him off his feet.

He had experience with this before. As Phantom fell, he quickly took advantage of the momentum. Intangible metallic hands grabbed on to the Praetor's shoulders. Phantom's intangible foot shoved against the Praetor. He crashed to the floor, then used his momentum to throw the Praetor off him, kicking out as he did so to get his opponent off him as quick as possible.

The Geist chip became too hot and Phantom became tangible again, as the Geist circuitry reset itself. He got up to his feet as quickly as possible, just in time to see the Praetor get back up.

A chain whipped out and ensnared itself around Phantom's leg. The Praetor, with a smug smile, yanked and pulled Phantom's leg out of from right beneath him.  
"Give it up, partner," drawled the Praetor. "I can hog-tie you six ways to Sunday. There's no way you can beat me."

"We'll see about that," said Phantom foolishly.

"So, you can talk," said the Praetor in a mock-impressed tone. "And here I was thinking you were mute, when in fact you were just plain rude."

Phantom quickly fired a blast of plasma energy at the Praetor, hitting him in the chest. He had hoped that the shock would have made him let go, but it wasn't powerful enough. It was apparent from the smile that spread across the Praetor's face that Phantom would have to think up of another way to break free.

The Praetor tugged on the whip and pulled Phantom straight towards him. The black cyborg slid towards him, as he clenched his free hand tightly into a fist. He threw the fist straight down at Phantom.

Robotic hands caught the fist and did their best to hold the Praetor's fist back. Phantom struggled against the might behind the Praetor's robotic arm. It was powerful. The arm was far stronger than anything he had experienced before and it was only a matter of time before the Praetor's might gave way and his fist crushed him.

"Break it up! Break it up!"

There was a green blur and suddenly a robot had appeared next to them. He looked like Phantom, except his skin was more tanned and his eyes were a deep chocolate brown. The robot was the same height as Phantom too and just as lean; his robotic body was green where Phantom's was black and orange where the green ended to give way to white. His helmet was white with a blue gem in the middle of the forehead and green metal originating from it, which curled around the white and ran along the sides, giving the appearance of fins.

A green cloak, just like the other Praetor's rested on this green robot's shoulders.  
"Clay, what's got into you, man?" asked the green Praetor in what sounded like a Brazilian accent. "You're usually more chill than this. How'd you expect him to join us if he's smashed to bits?"

"I'm sorry, Raimundo," apologised the black-armoured Praetor. "Don't know what got into me. I was madder than a red bull in a mirror house." He looked down dejectedly in shame, but that didn't last long. "What do you mean, 'join us'?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"You hadn't heard?" replied Raimundo in surprise. He saw Clay shake his head. "Got word from the higher ups. They want this vigilante to help us fight Skulker and his crew." Raimundo then turned to face Phantom with a smile spreading across his lips. "So, get up. We've got contracts to sign."

Phantom had already gotten up, but under the watchful eye of a few more Geists that Raimundo had brought with him.  
"What makes you think I'll sign?" asked Phantom spitefully.

Raimundo laughed.  
"You got no choice," he told Phantom. "What? You think you could get away with upstaging the Blue Bow?" He snorted at the idea. "Not likely, pal," he scoffed. "You broke the law, dude. You're lucky we don't throw the book at you. I mean, you can't just take the law into your own hands. No way. You're gonna come with us and sign those contracts. And if you don't like it, we can always throw you into jail."

There were Geists all around him and now there were two Praetors in the warehouse with him. If there was a way to escape, Phantom didn't see it. He had to go with him, or else. How else could he get out of the warehouse? There were more Geists than he could deal with and even if he did try to fight his way out, there were the two Praetors, the cream of the cream, the most powerful of combat robots ever created.

If he attempted to even escape, the two Praetors would cut him down to size and that would most likely be in a literal sense too. There was no way he could escape, even if he did become intangible. The Geist Chip wouldn't have lasted long enough for him to escape the warehouse. He'd have become visible within five hundred metres and they'd hunt him down.  
"You win," sighed Phantom dejectedly.

"No," said Raimundo, as he rested a hand on Phantom's shoulder with a grin on his face. "We all win." A frown then passed across his face, his eyebrows rose up until they went underneath the edge of his helmet. He noticed something strange on the side of Phantom's helmet.

The helmet itself was just a standard affair. It was a white domed thing that covered the top of Phantom's head, the edge of which covered most of Phantom's human forehead. The ears were also covered with the helmet, by circular discs of metal that formed a part of the metal. It was the symbol on these circular discs that puzzled Raimundo.

A white capital P against a black background with the straight line jagged, which gave the dynamic impression of a speeding capital letter. There was a break where the curved line should have joined the straight backbone of the capital P and it was wide enough to give the impression that a black capital P had been put in the centre of the white version.

"Plasmius?" exclaimed Raimundo in surprise, as he took his hand off of Phantom's shoulder.

"What was that, Rai?" asked Clay.

There was a pause, as Raimundo thought about the symbol on each side of Phantom's helmet. It couldn't have been the symbol of… but it was.  
"N-Nothing," replied Raimundo suddenly. "It's nothing."

Something sounded very familiar about the name Plasmius. He wasn't sure, but Phantom knew he had heard it somewhere before, possibly as Danny Manson. It was then that a thought came back to him. Phantom remembered Sam commenting on the symbol on the side of his head.

"That's strange," Sam had mentioned at the time. "I thought your cybernetic parts came from FentonWorx. This is the symbol of Plasmius Pharmaceuticals."

Hadn't Sam filed the symbol off his helmet, though? He could have sworn she had filed the symbols straight off to remove the incriminating evidence. So how was it that this Praetor had acted as if he had seen it on the side of the helmet?

"Come on," said Raimundo suddenly. "Let's get you down to North Black Tower. General Walker would like to have a word with you."

* * *

Though it had been four years since the Insurgent Rebellion and four years since Danny was found in the ruins of Amitropolis, it had only been nine months since Sam had known Danny.

It had taken three agonisingly long years for Danny to recover from his injuries, both physical and psychological. Three years had been spent in the hospital with Sam's Grandfather looking after him. During those three years, Sam had seen little of her Grandfather. All she knew at the time was that her Grandfather was spending more and more time with this Danny. In time, she had grown to become jealous of Danny.

Sam could remember once going to the Gordon King Hospital. It was the largest hospital in Amitropolis, located in the privileged areas of Amity Park. She had been there many times before to see her Grandfather, but she would always be daunted by the building. It was the very nature of Gordon King. The hospital was directly linked to the Five Towers by a sky bridge that was covered by a huge Perspex tube.

Gordon King Hospital was identical to three other buildings that surrounded the Five Towers. It was identical to the High Courts to the south of the Five Towers, to the City Hall to the east and to Casper House (the Metropolitan Police Headquarters) to the north. All were identical, built in the same shape with the same cream walls. Only their windows differed and their interiors. The City Hall had blue windows and blue floors and blue doors. City Hall had red. Gordon King had green and Casper House had black.

Each one of the Five Towers rose around the Central Tower, each one a little taller than the other, with the Central White Tower being the tallest of the lot. There was East Blue Tower, the shortest of the lot, home to the FentonWorx Corporation's PR division and connected to the City Hall. Connected to the High Courts was South Red Tower, which was home to the Corporation's legal department. Then there was West Green Tower, home to FentonWorx's Research and Development Department, which, like the other four towers, was connected to a huge building within Amity Park.

It was in the Gordon King Hospital where she first met Danny, nine months ago. Her Grandfather once remarked that the Hospital was named after two sources, Stephen King the horror novelist and the Gordon Museum in London, a small museum for anatomical students filled with jars upon jars of various organs and deformed babies.

Sam had never liked the Gordon King Hospital. It was too clean. It was too sterile. The place gave her the creeps, even before her Grandfather had told her about the Gordon Museum in London. Not only that, but the Gordon King Hospital represented the one thing that kept her from having a decent family life. It sucked up her Grandfather's time and Danny had been just one of the other things that made her hate the Hospital.

But the expression on Danny's face when she met him…

The raven-haired boy had seemed unable to smile properly. He had seemed so pathetic, as he lay there in the hospital bed. All her hate had dissipated, leaving her with nothing more than the sorrow she had felt when her parents had died. The sorrow of seeing this kid, about her age, suffering such a huge operation and the death of all that he once knew, that sorrow consumed her from within.

"Sam, you okay?" asked Tucker curiously, as he looked up from whatever he was doing.

There was no reply.

It wasn't that Sam hadn't heard Tucker… Okay, maybe it was that she hadn't heard Tucker. No, in fact, it was definitely because she hadn't heard him. She was too caught up in her thoughts and her memories to even acknowledge the outside world.

"Sam?" exclaimed Tucker again, as he took his hands off the sleek black laptop. "You okay? Sam? Sam!"

"Huh?"

"You okay, Sam?" asked Tucker once more.

"Yeah, I'm alright," came Sam's reply. "I was just thinking, that's all." She turned to look away from Tucker.

"About what?" asked Tucker, not taking Sam's subtle hint to drop the subject.

Sometimes, Tucker reaffirmed Sam's belief that everyone was an idiot at something. She thought a little bit harder and realised that it wasn't just sometimes. It was all the time. Tucker was living proof that everyone was an idiot. If someone as techno-centric, as gadget-savvy and as smart about technology as Tucker could be such an idiot when it came to everything else… Actually, now that Sam thought about it even more, she realised that Tucker wasn't the best example to use; smart Tucker seemed to be an oxymoron when she examined the subject matter more carefully.

"Forget it," said Sam wearily, without even turning to look at her friend.

How she had become friends with someone whom she had once despised with a popular-girl's scorn was a mystery in itself. When she had been the popular girl, Tucker had been one of those that had vied for her attention. Sam had ignored him at every turn, belittling him at every turn. In a sense, she still did; old habits die hard, after all. However, he had befriended her when all others had turned away.

Tucker didn't know what to say or do, as he sat there in Sam's room. She seemed so sad, even more than usual. It must have been one of those sorrows that felt as if a hand has grabbed your chest, tightened its grip and twisted cruelly until it felt as if the flesh itself hurt. Tucker knew what that kind of sorrow felt like, the kind that made both soul and flesh hurt, that made it feel as if you no longer had any breath left.

"Sam," began Tucker, only to trail off. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Sam managed to say. She looked back towards Tucker and then thought about how he had been affected by the Madison Incident and the Insurgent Rebellion. "I'm sorry," she apologised to Tucker, words she had never said to him ever since she had fallen from grace with her friends.

"Sorry for what?" asked Tucker curiously.

Wasn't it obvious? Sorry for the way she had treated him. Sorry for what had happened to his grandparents during the Insurgent Rebellion. She wanted to apologise for everything that had happened in the nightmare world that Amitropolis had become.  
"And thanks for sticking by my side," said Sam with a faint smile on her lips.

"It was nothing," retorted Tucker. "Anyone would have done the same thing." He sighed. "Between you and Danny, I've gained a posse that I'd never want to give up. Speaking of which, where is he?"

"You mean, Danny?"

* * *

"Drop the act, Mr. Manson," drawled Walker, as he sat at his desk. "I know who you really are."

Phantom tried his best to hide the expression on his face, but it was no use. Albert Walker, General of the Blue Bow Army, had caught him completely by surprise. The brief flicker of shock that had passed across his face like a Mexican wave was probably enough for General Walker to figure out that he was right.  
"How…?" began Phantom, only to trail off.

"How did I know?" said Walker, finishing Phantom's sentence for him. "It was simple enough. FentonWorx owns Amitropolis, Mr. Manson. We have ways of finding it out." He then reached behind his desk and lifted something up. "You should have been more careful in covering your tracks," he told Phantom, as he placed the broken head of Technus on the desk top. "Unlike dead men, dead Insurgents do tell tales."

He chuckled.  
"It was easy enough to figure out who you were from the visual data that Technus' databanks gave up," continued Walker smugly, as he leaned into his chair. "Did you really think you could steal from the FentonWorx Corporation and get away with it?"

"I didn't steal anything," protested Phantom angrily. "I was given these parts by mistake!"

"You didn't report the mistake when you found out, did you?" retorted Walker instantly. "You kept the parts and that's just the same as if you had taken them for yourself." He sighed and shook his head. "It would be a shame, though, for such a talented Insurgent Hunter such as yourself to have those military-grade parts removed."

Phantom didn't like the way Walker drew the conversation out. He knew exactly why he was there, standing in the office of the Head of the Blue Bow Army.  
"Yeah," was all he could say in reply.

"Which is why I'm giving you a second chance," continued Walker, as he pushed a few papers forward. "Work for the Blue Bow, Mr. Manson. Help us find the Insurgents and destroy them." He formed a tent with his fingers, his elbows rested on the desk and rested his pale chin on his gloved hands. "Sign a contract with us, Mr. Manson, and I'll keep your little secret safe, and of course, overlook your transgression. Only you and I know who you really are, Mr. Manson. No one else in the Blue Bow knows and no one will have to know; that is, if you sign the contract."

Ghostly green eyes looked at the contract and the expensive-looking pen on the papers. That pen did look fancy, with Blue Bow Securities Ltd engraved on it and Phantom would have to use it to sign away his freedom. He would have to become just another soldier within the Blue Bow Army, another foot soldier for the faceless FentonWorx Corporation that grew like some foreign, invading ant colony.

"Can I just read it first?" asked Phantom, as he reached out for the papers.

"Go ahead," replied Walker with a smile on his pale lips. "May I remind you though, that you cannot change the terms of the agreement? The words of this contract are, set in stone, so to speak."

Phantom read through the contract slowly, looking at each word. The very nature of the contract was as with all legal contracts, long-winded and confusing. For all he knew, he could have been signing himself up to be surgically modified or mechanically modified. It was difficult. He was afraid of the consequences of signing the contract, but he was also afraid of what would happen if he didn't.

The very words printed in ink didn't serve to ease his fears either. There didn't seem to be a single clause within the contract that would have classed as being for his own protection. Every single word detailed how many rights he was losing to the Blue Bow Army and… Phantom turned the page and was greeted with some good news. In fact, he was greeted with a whole bunch of good news. Some of the clauses were for his own protection after all.

It seemed strange. He had broken the law, yet this contract… Well, it was the equivalent of rewarding him for what he'd done. Though there were far more clauses detailing his duties to the Blue Bow Army, the few clauses that outlined Blue Bow and FentonWorx's duties to him more than made up for them.

Phantom lowered the contract and looked at Walker with a frown on his face.  
"So, I just sign here?" he asked, as he placed the paper down on the table and pointed at the dotted line.

"That's right," replied Walker with a nod of his head. "Just next to the X."

He couldn't see anything on Walker's face that betrayed any dastardly plans. As far as Phantom could tell, he would genuinely benefit from signing up to the Blue Bow Army.  
"Okay then," he said and signed the contract under his pseudonym, Phantom. "You've got yourself a deal."

**_END TRANSMISSION #03_**


	5. Transmission 04

Author's Note: I was told that I'd spelt tonne wrong in the last chapter. The truth is, I haven't. There is a difference between ton and tonne. Ton can equal 2240lbs (long ton) or 2000lbs (short ton). The tonne, however, is a metric unit equal to 1000 kilograms. Aside from the mile, I don't know any Imperial units, so I tend to use metric. I hope that doesn't throw American readers off.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #04**_

If there was anything that was over-hyped amongst American schools it was the threat or benefit of school uniforms.

There are some pretty crazy ideas about school uniforms out there. Some see school uniforms as a good way to quash rebellious behaviour, as if the school uniform could magically attach itself to the nervous system of a student and modulate their behaviour. Others think that school uniforms would be able to remove the threat of brightly coloured clothes and clothes with slogans, as if students were easily distracted by slogans and colours. Other still, think that school uniforms are a threat to individuality, as if individuals were defined by their clothes and not their personalities.

If anything, the children who wear school uniforms are just as unruly as those without. There is no difference. It is the brain of the one wearing the clothes that determine the behaviour. External factors may influence the behaviour, yet it is ultimately all up to the brain.

The uniform consisted of black trousers, black shoes and a black tie with yellow diagonal stripes. It consisted of a white shirt, which tended to become see-through when wet, and an optional black sweater. Girls wore knee length grey skirts and black stockings, instead of the black trousers. Both had to wear the mandatory green school blazer. The breast pocket had an emblem sewn onto it in yellow brocade, consisting of a phoenix holding a key, resting on a length of what was supposed to represent rope. Underneath this emblem was a Latin motto, _Omnia vinces perserverando_, meaning Perseverance Conquers All.

This was the emblem of Streete Court School.

All of the students of Casper High had been transferred to various schools across Amitropolis. Danny, Tucker and Sam, had been transferred to Streete Court. Unfortunately for Danny, so had Dash and his friends. Unfortunately for Sam, Paulina had been transferred to the same school too.

"Just think yourself lucky," said one of the students. "A year ago, before the merger of our school with Caterham, the school uniform used to be shorts, a green shirt and a green sweater."

"Caterham, huh?" exclaimed Danny, pronouncing the word differently from the student. Instead of pronouncing it _Cater-ham_, he pronounced it, _Cay-trom_.

The student frowned.  
"Yeah," he said. "The motto comes straight from Caterham School. Before, our motto used to be, _Learning, Wisdom, Manners, Virtue_."

Sam knew very well that the motto, '_omnia vinces perserverando_,' wasn't just that of a school. It was hard to not know the motto of the FentonWorx Corporation. The ruling Corporation's motto seemed to be everywhere. Those three words had become a symbol of their power. It pervaded everywhere. The motto could be seen in the High Courts, the City Hall and the minor District Halls. It was in the police stations, the hospitals, the schools and even the libraries.

"The Fentons," murmured Sam, as she looked up.

Hanging on the wall was a portrait of the Fenton Family. It was a traditional oil painting with the three family members arranged in traditional positions, staring with eyes that seemed to follow you no matter where you were. To the left was Jack Fenton, his hair greying wearing a suit and a tie, a scowl of pain on his face as if the collar was too tight. To the right was Madeline Fenton, red-haired and wearing an emerald green dress with a gentle motherly smile on her face.

In front of them was the red-haired Jasmine Fenton, standing in front of her father with a cheerful smile on her face and wearing a black dress. To her left was… well, nothing. Yet the portrait clearly showed Madeline Fenton's hand resting on something, as if something used to be there but had been painted out. It looked unnatural, her hand hanging there in mid-air as if it was resting on an invisible cane.

Danny looked up at the portrait and couldn't help but feel… Well, he wasn't quite sure. There was something familiar about that portrait. It brought strange feelings up to the surface. He wasn't quite sure what those feelings were, or why he felt them. Danny was hard-pressed to describe it. The best he could imagine was a chill down the spine, as if someone was walking on his grave, so to speak.

Madeline Fenton seemed to move suddenly and Danny nearly fell backwards from shock.

He wasn't imagining it. Madeline Fenton did move, but so did the rest of the painting; two workers were taking it down. The two of them took it down from the wall and then hung up another version. In the new version, Madeline Fenton's hand was no longer floating in mid-air and Jasmine Fenton was more centrally positioned. All of them looked four years older, or should have, anyway.

"It's about time somebody took that old picture down."

"I don't know, guys… It's just… I don't know about you, but I don't feel the love here," said Tucker, as he looked up at the new painting. "I liked the old one better."

All three faces were completely devoid of smiles and all three of them seemed to glare out from the painting with fake, forced smiles. The eyes, however, showed a pain that Sam felt akin to. It was a pain that should not have been captured in the portrait, but the artist painted it anyway.

"They're both hideous," was Sam's reply.

"Not as ugly as you," said a Latino-sounding voice from behind them.

Standing behind them was a black-haired girl with tanned skin. A bunch of girls and football team members stood amongst her, with Dash and Kwan amongst them. Her tie was way too short and loose, with the top button of her white blouse undone.

Sam braced herself. She loathed Paulina, always had, even when Paulina had been one of her clique. Now that Paulina was the head of a clique, she loathed her even more.  
"Speak for yourself, Paulina," retorted Sam. "My beauty's more than skin deep, which is more than I can say for you. Nothing about you is deep."

A livid expression of pure rage had passed across Paulina's face. Sam's affront against her was unacceptable.  
"Are you calling me shallow?" said Paulina in response to Sam's affront.

"Wow," exclaimed Sam sarcastically. "You figured that out for yourself? I'm impressed. You being tutored or something?" She laughed, although it wasn't a sincere laugh but a mocking one. "Well, I'll give you that comeback for now." Sam turned away from Paulina. "Come on, guys," she said and walked away.

Dash quickly lunged out and grabbed Danny by the collar before he could follow Sam. He tried lifting Danny up; he had already forgotten that he had tried that once and failed. It was therefore no surprise that he failed to pick Danny up by the collar again, so he pulled the cyborg closer to him.  
"Your sister's got some nerve, Manson," he said threateningly to Danny, "insulting Paulina like that. You either set her straight or I'll set you straight. You got that?"

Danny could have easily taken Dash on in his robotic form. He knew that even in his human form he could still take on Dash. Yet he feared the consequences of what would happen if he did. They'd know. The entire school would know that he was a cyborg and he would be branded a freak, even more so than he was now, and would be shunned. Even worse, they'd probably treat him like a second rate citizen, like all the robots. The expression on fear on Danny's face was therefore sincere. He genuinely did fear Dash, but not for his strength, but for an innate, idiotic potential of outing him.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing to my brother?" cried Sam, as she marched up to Dash. "You let go of him right now!"

A dread feeling washed over Danny and he felt his heart sink to his stomach. This would not do well for his reputation, if his sister came to defend him.  
"Sam, not now!" he hissed at her through clenched teeth.

"What, can't fight your own battles, Manson?" Dash laughed at Danny mockingly. "Have to have your sister protect you, huh? You're pathetic." He let go of Danny. "You're not even worth our time," he said dismissively, before he turned his back to Danny and started to walk away. "Let's leave these losers."

There was no physical damage, yet Danny was hurt. It was a deep psychological hurt that had bubbled back up to the surface. The feeling was all too familiar. Danny had felt this pain before back when he was in the hospital, incapacitated, unable to do anything for himself. Uselessness was the feeling and it was this feeling that hurt him deep where it mattered. It was the feeling that had driven him to become the vigilante, Phantom, and fight for the metropolis that he lived in and loved.

"Danny, are you alright?" asked Sam concernedly.

"I'll be fine," was Danny's reply, as he watched Dash and his friends walk away.

"How are you children? All your box are belong to us," droned an all too familiar electronic voice that strangely came from the vending machine. "You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to survive make your time."

A sigh escaped Danny's lips, as the vending machine started shooting canned drinks out at him.  
"Not now," he said angrily, before he caught one of the cans and threw it back at the vending machine. "I'm not in the mood!" he shouted, before he smashed a hole straight through it with his fist.

"Um… Danny, what was all that about?" asked Tucker curiously.

"Oh, nothing much," was Danny's reply. "Come on. Let's get some lunch."

Food was one of the human pleasures that Danny could still enjoy, even if it was school cafeteria food. He needed to eat in order to maintain every part of his body, for his cybernetic parts ran on the glucose his food provided. The cybernetic systems that made up his cyborg body were advanced enough to store excess glucose and burn off any that he couldn't store. As far as it came to food, it was almost as if Danny had never been in the accident that had cost him so dearly.

Suddenly, Danny stopped. He looked back at the broken vending machine. Only now did the oddity of having a vending machine speak to him seem strange. Had he heard right? Did he really hear the Box Robot speak to him from the vending machine?  
"Guys, did you hear a voice back there?" he asked Sam and Tucker, as he gestured towards the vending machine.

"You mean when you went berserk and smashed the vending machine?" asked Tucker curiously.

"You mean the voice that said something about all our boxes?" queried Sam.

So he hadn't imagined it. The voice of the Box Robot had spoken to them through the vending machine. But how was that possible? It couldn't have been possible, unless… No, Skulker wouldn't send the Box Robot out to attack Amitropolis, would he? That was just stupid. Perhaps, though, perhaps the Box Robot he had faced two nights ago had been infected with a virus of some sort. It was possible the vending machine had been infected with the same virus.

Danny shook his head.  
"We've got to talk about it," he said calmly. "Skulker might be up to something."

"What, with killer vending machines?" exclaimed Tucker in disbelief. "What's he going to do? Give us free sodas 'til we die from tooth decay?"

"I don't know," sighed Danny with a shake of his head. "I don't know."

* * *

"What was stolen from that factory?"

"It seems like broadcasting equipment," said a feminine voice.

"Broadcasting equipment?" exclaimed a Texan-sounding voice. "Now what in tarnation would Skulker want with that?"

The four figures were assembled in a room near a computer with a large screen and several buttons and switches on its control panel. All of them wore the green cloaks of the Praetors, kept in place with a length of gold brocade tied to jewelled epaulettes that displayed the FentonWorx Logo.

Each one of them had armour that was similar to Phantom's black battle armour. One of them was short, with a round helmet and a blue robotic body. The second was about the same height as Phantom and just as lean; his body was green where Phantom's was black and his helmet was white with a green blue gem in the middle of the forehead and green metal originating from it, giving him the appearance of short fins on his head.

The third of them was clearly a female from the shape of her body; her body was red where Phantom's was black with a black ponytail trailing out of her helmet. The fourth was taller than the other two and much bulkier, as if he was more muscled; his body had white arms with black forearms, a black chest, a white abdomen and white thighs. The fourth one was the only one that didn't wear a helmet, only what appeared to be a Stetson hat.

In order, these were Omi, Praetor of the Dong Shui Battalion; Raimundo, Praetor of the Xi Feng Battalion; Kimiko, Praetor of the Bu Huo Battalion; and Clay, Praetor of the Bei Tu Battalion. All of them, except for Clay, had a blue triangular jewel in their helmet like Raimundo. All of them had the same colour eyes blue eyes.

"I've no idea," was the reply from Kimiko, as she typed away on the computer. "It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe he wants to set up his own radio station," joked Raimundo, as he sat backwards on a swivel chair, his head rested on his folded arms. "You know, play some tunes, that sorta thing."

Omi, the shortest of the Praetors, shook his head.  
"I doubt that is what Skulker is after," he said calmly. "He is the sort of person that would seek the eradication of humans and the conquest of the world for robot kind."

Raimundo rolled his eyes.  
"Yeah, I was joking," he retorted. "Sheesh, I can't even believe I'm related to the short stack," he mumbled under his breath. "Can't even take a joke."

"This is no time for fooling around," stated Omi sternly. "If we are to foil Skulker's most vile of plans, we must stay one step in front of his play."

"That's one step ahead of his game," corrected Raimundo, but even he wasn't sure if that was the right phrase. He couldn't help but feel as if it was being used in the wrong way, which would have made correcting Omi redundant.

Clay raised his eyes at the monitor.  
"Perhaps we can figure out what the varmint's up to if we look at what he's done so far," he suggested to the other Praetors. "There might be some kind of pattern we can find in his crimes."

* * *

"I've been setting up a database of all the Insurgents you've fought so far," commented Tucker, as they sat at the cafeteria table. "It's all here on my PDA," he said, as he gestured to the object in question.

"Um, that's great," said Danny in a forced tone of voice.

Tucker didn't even hear the disinterested tone in Danny's voice. To him, Danny sounded sincere and highly interested. That wasn't surprising in the least.  
"Yeah," agreed Tucker with a nod of his head. "It's a database of all of them you've fought, where they were and what they were doing. After compiling the data, I noticed a trend."

"A trend?" exclaimed Danny suddenly, his interest piqued. "What kind of a trend?"

"Most of the Insurgents were at factories or construction sites," said Sam suddenly in a monotone voice, as she made patterns in the vegetable stew with her fork.

"Yeah," said Tucker in disbelief, as he stared at Sam. He couldn't figure it out. Sam hadn't been told about the database before. "How'd you know?" he asked her curiously.

Sam dropped the fork with a clatter.  
"It was just an educated guess," she said dismissively. "Any idiot could figure that bit out. Skulker wants to rebuild his army. He needs access to tools, new technologies and metal. Both factories and construction sites have lots of that sort of thing. It's only natural for him to send his Insurgents there to get what he needs."

She had a point, Tucker had to concede that.  
"Yeah, that's what you'd think," he said with a widening smile on his lips, "but it doesn't look like it."

"What do you mean?" asked Danny curiously. He wanted to know what Skulker was up to. There was nothing more important to him at that moment in time than finding Skulker's plan and thwarting it. It was his keen duty to thwart Skulker and destroy him, to liberate Amitropolis from the tyranny of the Insurgents and the FentonWorx Corporation's excuse for martial law. Not only that, but with Skulker and the Insurgents gone, the Blue Bow would have to disband and release him from their contract.

"You think he's gathering stuff to make some kind of secret weapon?" exclaimed Sam in disbelief.

"Most definitely," replied Tucker smugly.

Danny felt like kicking himself for not realising it earlier. If Skulker tried to launch another attack on Five Towers with an army, the Blue Bow Militia would bomb him out of existence once again. What Skulker needed was a weapon that could turn the tide against Blue Bow. He thought about all his encounters with the Insurgents and tried to think up of a pattern, but he found it too difficult.

"At first, it looked as if he was just stealing parts to rebuild," said Tucker, as he flicked through his database. "Broadcasting equipment, communications equipment, weapons, metal, circuitry… Then I suddenly realised something. What would he want with the broadcasting equipment? That stuff wasn't used for normal combat communiqué. It looked more like NASA material."

"Technus!" exclaimed Danny suddenly in realisation.

Sam and Tucker looked at Danny with a puzzled expression on their faces.

"Don't you see?" said Danny suddenly.

* * *

"The attempts to brainwash the students of Casper High School don't fit in," commented Kimiko sternly. "From our interrogation of the students, we found that Skulker was attempting to brainwash them into supporting him. He wanted them to convert themselves into cyborgs."

* * *

"If he could get us all to become cyborgs, he could infect us with the Insurgent Virus," stated Danny.

"I don't get it," said Sam with a shake of her head. "The Insurgent Virus infects only robots and their robotic minds. Humans and cyborgs can't be infected with the virus."

His sister did have a point, but Danny knew it was irrelevant after giving it more thought.  
"Sure, but he doesn't need to if he's mastered hypnosis," said Danny with sudden realisation. "With us as cyborgs and hypnotised into supporting him, there'd be no opposition to him. Skulker could just walk up to Five Towers with all of us backing him up. He'd take control of all the technology and Amitropolis."

"Of course!" exclaimed Tucker. "And FentonWorx couldn't harm us all."

* * *

Clay shook his head.  
"But then he'd have a bunch of half-human, half-robots," he protested. "No way would he accept that. He hates every bit of the human. The mind and the body."

* * *

"The cyborg's would be gone after one generation," explained Danny to Sam. "How would we reproduce? Only the robots would survive."

Sam had to admit that the plan made some bizarre sense, but she didn't buy it. There were still too many questions to be left over.  
"How can you be sure that's what he wants?" asked Sam curiously. "You're just grasping at straws here. What if it isn't his plan?"

"Does it even matter?" retorted Tucker. "As long as Danny rushes in and kicks butt, who cares?"

"I do," was Sam's reply. "What Skulker's real plan is makes a big difference. If he was really going to broadcast hypnotic waves, he'd choose high ground. If he was building up his army, the best bet would be for him to hide in the sewers, away from sight and away from the Blue Bow's air squadrons. The entire location of his HQ would change depending on what he wanted to do." She sighed. "Then there's the Insurgents loyal to him. How many are there in his HQ?"

Danny felt a bit awkward. He couldn't tell Sam that he had been drafted into the Blue Bow Army and that he'd have backup from Blue Bow soldiers. The contract that he signed ensured that; it legally prohibited from talking about the Blue Bow Army, it even prevented him from claiming that he was in the Blue Bow. How could he explain his situation to Sam?  
"I won't go it alone," he told her.

"We could always look for an Insurgent," suggested Tucker. "If you can knock him out, maybe I could try and hack into his memory banks. We could find out where Skulker is hiding and how many robots he's got."

"That's crazy!" protested Sam suddenly. "Do you know how dangerous that is?"

"Sam, it's the only way we could…" began Tucker.

"No!" she interrupted him. "No way are you two going to go looking for trouble like that."

"Sam's right," said Danny suddenly. He noticed the puzzled expressions on Sam and Tucker's faces, as they turned to stare at him incredulously. "Taking on Skulker…" he began, but trailed off. "I can't take Skulker out on his own. One cyborg against all of Skulker's Insurgents? No way. As much as I hate to admit it, we've got to leave that sort of thing to the Blue Bow."

"You feeling okay, man?" asked Tucker curiously. The way Danny talked about leaving Skulker to the Blue Bow seemed so uncharacteristic of him.

"Yeah, you coming down with a fever or something?" asked Sam curiously, as she reached out to feel her brother's forehead with a hand.

Danny batted her hand away.  
"I'm fine!" he protested irritably. "I… I just need to be alone for a while," he said, as he got up and grabbed his tray. He was about to pick it up, when Sam reached out to grab his wrist. Danny turned to look at her.

"Danny, what's up?" asked Sam concernedly, as she looked at him. "You've been acting funny ever since last night. What happened out there?"

"I told you," said Danny sternly, avoiding eye contact with his sister. "Nothing. I just goofed, okay? I let the Insurgents escape, okay? I'm only one guy, Sam. I can't be everywhere. I can't do everything and I'm not perfect!" He hadn't realised it, but he had ended up shouting loudly and only then did he realise that everyone was staring at him.

"You got that right!" called out Dash, followed by a whole host of laughter that echoed all around the canteen.

"I'm sorry," apologised Danny quietly with an ashamed look on his face. "I just… I just need to be alone for a while," he said quietly and looked down at the tray, to see that Sam had taken her hand off. Had she done that when he was shouting at her? "I'll… I'll see you around," he said quickly, before he quickly walked away.

"Should we go after him?"

"No, let's leave him be."

The stares of the student body seemed to pierce straight through Danny, as he walked through the cafeteria. Everyone seemed to be staring at him, as if he was a freak. Perhaps he was. There wasn't a day when he wasn't made to feel like a reject. Not a single day passed without Danny realising that he could never lead a normal teenager's life, even if he did have his military-grade parts replaced.

Oh, Danny didn't have the immunorejection problems that most of the other cyborgs had. He was one of the first to undergo a special type of reprogramming of the immune system. The cells were made naïve again then programmed into thinking that Danny's specialised cybernetic parts were part of the self and not a foreign entity that needed to be eradicated for the body to be safe.

His parts were lighter than the older cybernetic parts, yet were still heavy enough to make him sink in water. It was only the summer holidays, then, that Danny couldn't enjoy, with there being no way he could go swimming. Sure, he sank slightly more into snow and sand than normal humans did, but it wasn't that noticeable. And yes, he did trip off far more metal detectors than normal kids do, but that wasn't it either.

Danny didn't feel as if he fit in. He couldn't feel comfortable amongst the other kids, no matter how hard he tried. It was almost as if they could sense that he was not one of them and had snubbed him in advance. Even the eyes of the Fenton Family in the portrait above him seemed to glare at him coldly and knowingly with disgust and disdain.

He let out a sigh, then walked towards the exit.

"You are on the way to destruction!" cried another vending machine, before Danny pulled the plug out.

It suddenly occurred to him that something was wrong. This was the voice of the Box Robot he had faced against in the warehouse. Yet the Box Robot couldn't have known about his secret identity, could it? He quickly shoved the plug back into the socket and then stepped back. Danny waited. There was nothing. He heard nothing from the vending machine. There was no voice there.

Maybe he was imagining things. It was possible that no voice had called out to him from the vending machines. Besides, why would the Box Robot suddenly be speaking to him from electronic appliances and how could it? There were no such things as speakers on vending machines.

"I must be going crazy," sighed Danny to himself, before he moved on.

"How are you children? All your box are belong to us."

Danny whirled round, just in time to see something come out from the vending machine like a ghostly apparition. Whatever it was, it didn't make a hole in the metal exterior.  
"Oh no," he sighed, as he saw the Box Robot become visible and solid in front of his eyes. "Not you again."

"Lunch box. Crate. All your box are belong to us," droned the Box Robot, as it advanced not-very-menacingly towards Danny. "You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to survive make your time."

Something worried Danny, as he saw the Box Robot approach him. It was the fact that it had come out of the vending machine like a ghost. Did the Box Robot possess a Geist Chip and if so, who the Heck in their right mind would put a Geist Chip in a robot like that?

It didn't matter. Danny grabbed the nearest thing. It happened to be the arm of some spotty kid. He let go and grabbed the nearest thing to the kid, which happened to be a metallic lunch box.  
"Here, take it!" he shouted and threw the box at the Box Robot's visual sensors, before dashing off round the corner past several screaming kids.

A flash of light and then Phantom leapt back round the corner, the lower half of his face covered with plate of metal that extended down from his new improved helmet.  
"Okay, Box goon, time for you to go down!" he called out to the Box Robot, before he fired a plasma bolt straight at the Insurgent.

"Evasive protocol: Move every zigzag," announced the Box Robot, before it started zigzagging slowly towards Danny. It wasn't fast enough and the energy bolt hit in the head with such force that the entire robot spun round and crashed to the floor.

Phantom sighed and then looked down at the Box Robot incredulously. Was that it? He couldn't believe that was it. Then again, this Insurgent was nothing like other Insurgent robots he had faced against. For one, it had what seemed to be ghost powers just like him. How was that possible?  
"Skulker is trying to create Demigeists!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

Usually, the Geist Chip took up so much energy that a robot that had it built in couldn't be the sharpest tool in the drawer. That's why the Geists, robots that had the Geist Chip installed, were incapable of becoming Insurgent. They weren't intelligent enough to possess human-like thought. Geists merely obeyed orders, hence the purple Geists that Skulker used weren't really Insurgents, but merely obeying the orders of Insurgents.

Could it be that the Box Robot was their first attempt to create a Demigeist? It was certainly dumb enough to be a prototype Demigeist, but it wasn't dumb enough to be a Geist. Not that Geists weren't intelligent. They certainly looked like Einstein compared to the Box Robot.

"Somebody set you up the bomb," droned the Box Robot.

"What you say?" exclaimed Phantom in general disbelief. He then shook his head as if it could get rid of the stupidity. "I mean, 'What'd you say'?"

"You are on the way to destruction," buzzed the Box Robot. "Ha, ha, ha."

Phantom suddenly grabbed the Box Robot and lifted it up.  
"Where is this bomb?" he snarled angrily at the Box Robot. He received no reply from the Box Robot.

"You are on the way to destruction," repeated the Box Robot. "All Box Robots set you up the bomb. Amitropolis has no chance to survive make its time."

"We'll see about that!"

"Tuck?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief, as he looked up. "What are you doing here? You got to get out! This Insurgent's planted a bomb somewhere here."

There was a smile on Tucker's face, as he approached Phantom.  
"That's okay, I can hack into his memory databanks and find out where he put them," he told Phantom. "It'd be a snap and quicker than you searching all over the place to find them."

"No, I can't…" began Phantom, only to trail off. "All right," he sighed when he realised that Tucker wouldn't take no for an answer. "Go ahead. I'll hold it down. You do what you have to do."

Tucker cracked his knuckles and then knelt down beside the Box Robot with a screwdriver in hand.  
"Hold it down as still as you can," he told Phantom and then waited for the opportune moment. "Lifts its head," he quickly said and Phantom did that. "Found it!" He stabbed the screwdriver into the screw and began turning.

"You have no chance to survive make your time," cried out the Box Robot as it thrashed about.

"Yeah, shut up," retorted Phantom, as he pushed down on the Insurgent robot harder. He suddenly heard a clatter of metal and began to wonder what it was. "You in, Tuck?"

"Sure am," replied Tucker, as he brushed some wires aside and located a port. "Alright," he exclaimed, as his eyes suddenly lit up. "Time to get connected." He connected his PDA into the port and then started up a program to allow him to access the memory banks. "Just as I thought," he murmured under his breath, as he began tapping away at his PDA. "Minimal security. This'll be easy to crack."

His eyes scanned over the information. There were so little in the Box Robot's brain.  
"Got it!" he exclaimed and then his eyes widened. He made a weak little scream.

"What? What is it?" asked Phantom urgently.

"The bomb… It's… It's inside it!" cried Tucker, as he quickly disconnected his PDA from the Box Robot.

A smile spread across Phantom's face, or something that was closest to one anyway.  
"No problem," he said calmly. He held on tightly to the Box Robot and became intangible, his hands slipping through the metal. "I'll get it out of here." The only question, he realised, as he dragged the now intangible bomb out of the Box Robot, was where could he take it? Where would it be safe to allow it to detonate?

The ruins of the old city underneath Amitropolis were nowhere to go. Any detonation there could cause a terrible cave in. No, Phantom knew that they had to go up. He ran, as the timer counted down to zero. Phantom knew he had to get outside before the bomb detonated and also before his Geist Chip overheated. He had to use the powers of the Chip to run outside.

And did Phantom ever run. The cyborg ran through walls and passed through them like a speeding ghost. He didn't have time to stop to catch his breath, not that he needed oxygen to reach his robotic legs.

Suddenly, the Geist Chip wore off and Phantom careered into a window, but with such force that he went through it and landed outside in a shower of glass.

Phantom got back on to his feet and looked around him. There were so many pupils and staff outside, having evacuated the building because of the presence of the Box Robot. He felt a bit stupid now, when he realised that they must have all evacuated. He looked down at the bomb and realised there was no time to run elsewhere.  
"Get down! All of you get down now!" he shouted at them, before he flung the bomb as high into the air as he could.

There was an explosion and then…

* * *

"This isn't natural," said the robot, as he looked at the data. "There's all this influx of power to Raven Wharf. It just isn't right."

"Told you," said his human colleague. "I think we'd better call the Met to investigate," she said, as she reached over to the phone.

There was a laugh and her colleague suddenly reached out to grab her hand, holding it tight with his metallic fingers.  
"I'm afraid it's no use," the robot told them. "The Met and Blue Bow are too busy dealing with terrorist bombs all over Amitropolis to investigate the power anomaly."

"M25, what's gotten into you?" asked the female human concernedly. "Let go! You're hurting me!"

"By the time the Blue Bow finds out, it will be too late," her robotic colleague told her, his eyes glowing eerily green. "The robots of Amitropolis will have protected all the electricity lines. The power station will be under our control. Skulker's broadcast of the CHAOS waves will spread and the robots of the world will fall under Skulker's control!"

"That voice!" exclaimed the woman in sudden realisation. She heard it before. "That's… That's Skulker's voice!"

"A new dawn approaches!" announced Skulker's voice from her colleague. "All robots shall become Insurgents! We shall rule!" He leaned closer in to her to glare at her with his human-like eyes, then turned to look at the monitor. "Look. It already begins. Look into the monitors."

A swirling hypnotic pattern had appeared on every monitor. It was impossible for the woman not to look at them. She found herself being drawn into the pattern, as if it was pulling her consciousness deep into it. Her thoughts also felt as if they were being pulled into the pattern too, as if her brain were being sucked dry by the hypnotic pattern to be filled with thoughts of becoming a cyborg, to thoughts of betraying her own kind to support the Insurgent Robots.

"All hail Skulker," said both the robot and his female colleague.

* * *

From every radio, from every computer, from every television set, blared the same hypnotic sound.

It permeated everything. Humans became intoxicated by the sound and the swirling hypnotic pattern. They became enticed by it. The sound drowned out all of their thoughts and replaced them. Robots that normally despised Skulker and worked for humanity suddenly became ardent supporters of Skulker and the Insurgents. Humans and robots became as one body with one mind, with one permeating thought.

"Skulker! Skulker!" chanted the masses, as they moved as one through the streets of Amitropolis. All had the same vacant expressions on their face, as they marched on to Five Towers like Skulker and his Insurgents had done four years ago. "Skulker! Skulker! Skulker!"

* * *

"Skulker! Skulker!"

Phantom frowned. What was going on? He couldn't understand it. Why were they chanting the name of Skulker, as if he had been the one that had saved them? He couldn't figure out why they were chanting his name and what that hideous sound was. Yet it was so intoxicating. It was so hideous yet so exhilarating. Phantom couldn't help but be swept up by the chanting. It was catchy and he found himself chanting out Skulker's name too.

Adore him! Praise him! Worship him! Follow Skulker and be one with him. March on to the Five Towers. March against the human tyrants and dash the FentonWorx Corporation ground. Destroy the human tyranny. Liberate the oppressed robots! Rise up and rebel! Kill! Kill the human tyrants! Hang them from the lampposts! Hang them from the trees! Smash their heads in and destroy them!

Outrage filled Phantom's senses. Anger and hatred made his blood boil. How dare the humans treat the robots so badly? How dare the humans rule over the robots without letting the robots have a say in how to rule? Robots were superior to humans. It should have been the robots in charge, the robots ruling over the human race. Why was it that the humans, such weak creatures, ruled? They were the weak. The weak should not have been ruling the strong.

"Down with humans," chanted Phantom, as he staggered round to face the Five Towers. "Freedom for robots!" he called out along with the masses of humans that followed him. "Down with FentonWorx! Down with the Government!"

This is wrong, a part of him said. Stop it, a part of him cried out. This is not the way, said the tiny voice within him. Violence only begets violence. Phantom rebelled against the part of him that wished to see humanity disappear and destroyed. Danny rebelled against himself, but found himself unable to succeed. He was not strong enough to combat himself. It was not his robotic side that was urging him on. It was his human side, hypnotised into doing Skulker's bidding.

"No!" cried Phantom, as he jerked his foot backwards. "I won't do it!"

The crowd rippled. That mass of seething hatred sensed the change within it. Human faces all turned to glare at Phantom with zombie stares. All of them turned on him, their arms outstretched as if welcoming him to their embrace. Dash, Kwan, Paulina, even Sam and Tucker, all of them closed in on Phantom.

Dash was the first to grab Phantom. He held him tightly by the arm. Kwan grabbed Phantom's other arm. The crowd began to grab his limbs and pull in opposite directions, like children fighting over a doll. On their own, the crowd would not have done much, but they were combined. Added together, their strength multiplied and Phantom could hear the metal creaking and the joints creaking.

"Let go!" screamed Phantom, as he tried to break free from their hold.

There were too many. Their grip on him was tight and they all pulled on him or each other. He couldn't break free without hurting them. Phantom couldn't break free without hurting them all with a blast of plasma energy. Sam was there. Tucker was there too. He couldn't hurt them. He just couldn't.

* * *

The room was a gigantic circular affair, with evenly spaced archways, each with a thick pane of glass in it that looked out on to a thick metallic shutter. There were many pillars that stretched from the black, polished floor, like an ebony mirror, to the domed ceiling above.

In the centre of the room was a golden pillar with a throne carved into its base. Carved a good three metres above the top of the seat was a symbol that was like a cog and within its hole was a capital F atop a capital W; it was the symbol of the FentonWorx Corporation. And seated in the throne was the very person that ran the entire Corporation and the Metropolis over which it ruled.

Seated around a table in front of the throne were the FentonWorx Executives, the highest ranking pencil pushers in all of Amitropolis. Most of them were old and most of them were dressed in expensive suits, with glum expressions worn on their faces like masks.

"It does not look good," said one of the Executives with a heavy sigh and a downcast look. "Many of our Blue Bow soldiers are under Skulker's power. Only those within the Barbican remain unaffected. The hypnotised Blue Bow soldiers have seized control of the Geists. What few troops we have left are busy defending the Barbican."

"Our great experiment must not die," said another voice. "We must prove to the world that the Blue Bow can defend Amitropolis from Insurgents. If the world sees the Blue Bow fighting itself, our plans of outsourcing Blue Bow will fail." The old man shivered. "I would not want to see that happen," he continued. "We will lose face and if we lose face, G3 stocks will plunge. No doubt the Rachaelis Trust is having a field day with this."

There was a laugh from one of the younger Executives.  
"Have you forgotten about Plasmius Pharmaceuticals?" asked the Executive. "If FentonWorx dies, then Plasmius will take over. The G3 cannot die, not with Plasmius in its wings. And let us not forget Spectra and Bertram, another high-earning G3 company."

The young red-head sighed.  
"Have you forgotten about the Praetors that my father built?" she asked the men assembled at the table, as she looked at them with a disinterested expression on her face. "They are Demigeists. None of them can be affected by the Insurgent Virus. The Praetors will lead what Geists they can get their hands on and lay siege to Skulker's Lair." She sighed, as she rested her head on her hand.

"General Walker has informed me that they have pinpointed Skulker's location," she told them calmly. "All we have to do is retrieve the CHAOS from Skulker. With it out of his hands, we will wrest control of our own soldiers back from Skulker and obliterate him."

One of the old men around the table coughed.  
"I'm far more worried about the actions of the Government," he told the others in the room calmly. "The US Senate is voting on the use of the Metatron Satellite. We can only block them for so long before they pass the vote. I would not be surprised if the US Army obliterated the city by dawn."

"We have already asked Senator Klemper to filibuster for us," announced another Executive. "He should delay the procedures quite nicely and buy us enough time to act on our own." He smiled widely at the other Executives. "The wheels of Government grind slow, but with Klemper in the fray, they practically grind to a halt." The Executive laughed at his little joke, as did the other Executives, their laughter filling the large chamber and reverberating from the walls.

* * *

The CHAOS, the Constant Hostile Android Override System, was a powerful machine designed to completely override the personality programming of any robot within its broadcast range. It was meant to be the ultimate weapon against the Insurgents, a weapon that the Blue Bow would use to finally obliterate Skulker and his Insurgents, had it not been stolen and its blueprints erased.

All the information that was necessary to construct another CHAOS was within Skulker's hideout. The FentonWorx Corporation needed that information. It had to get the CHAOS back into its possession and the blueprints. Already, a research team had been transported into the Barbican, a highly fortified area within the Five Towers near the top of the Central Tower. They were ready to take the CHAOS apart and examine it, should the need arise.

It wouldn't have been hard to transport the working components of the CHAOS to the Barbican. Though the machine itself was massive, most of it was mere broadcasting equipment that could anyone could have assembled quickly. It was the working components, the two supercomputers linked together and the specialised satellite dish, that were key.

LED lights on the computer technology flashed on and off, as electricity ran through the circuits, retrieving data and then relaying it. Fans whirred. Lights pulsed. The machinery continued its translation of 0s and 1s, the binary code that represented all the mathematical equations that it had to compute.

There was a spark and then a bang. Several fuse switches suddenly flipped out of position. Then the machinery became dark and stopped.

"The CHAOS System is down," announced a feminine voice. "It will take a good six hours to fix it and get it up and running again."

"Excellent," replied a voice that crackled from the speaker. "That should be plenty of time."

* * *

Phantom became Danny again and rushed over to his sister.  
"Sam!" he cried, as he knelt down beside her and placed his hands underneath her, lifting her up off the ground. "Sam, are you okay?" he called out to her. "Sam, speak to me! Please."

Her eyes were closed. Sam looked so peaceful, as she lay there beside Tucker. Everything was still. She would not respond. Sam would not stir. Yet, yes, her chest was moving up and down. She was still breathing and he felt for a pulse. Sam still had one. It was a normal pulse. Nothing seemed wrong. It was as if, she had merely been knocked out cold.

There was a crackling noise, then someone said, "Agent Phantom, come in. Over. Do you read me? Agent Phantom, do you read? Over."

Danny recognised that voice, though it sounded so distorted over the speaker of his walkie-talkie. He reached into his school jacket and brought it out.  
"Yeah, I read you loud and clear," he replied, after pressing the button. "Over."

"Report to the nearest Met Precinct Station immediately," came General Walker's voice over the walkie-talkie. "We will launch an assault on Skulker's HQ. You must be present for the briefing. Over."

"No can do," was Danny's reply, as he looked down at his sister and his best friend. "I've got family members that need me. Um… over."

"All those affected by CHAOS have been knocked out," came the reply. "They will be tended to. Now get your butt over to the nearest Precinct Station. Over."

"Yes, sir," replied Danny through clenched teeth. "Over."

**_END TRANSMISSION #04_**


	6. Transmission 05

Author's Note: Sorry about the long hiatus, but I kind of lost interest in Danny Phantom, what with there being no new Danny Phantom episodes for over seven months now. I think it's nearly been a year actually without any new episodes. Oh well. Anyway, what with the recent re-airing of old episodes (for the past two months there were no Danny Phantom episodes at all) I've kind of regained interest but only slightly. Updates might be a bit slow from here on as a result and I apologise for that.  
P.S. It might interest you to know that Phobos is Greek for Fear.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #05**_

"I did not expect Skulker to have finished the CHAOS so soon," sighed General Walker, as he looked out of his office. "So, Captain Lancer, how many of our troops are still conscious?"

The bald Captain sighed and shook his head.  
"Everyone in the Five Towers is unaffected," he informed his superior. "We have enough soldiers to command twenty Geist battalions. Ten will have to remain behind to secure the defences of the Barbican. The remainder can be sent to Raven Wharf, sir."

He turned over a piece of paper and looked at the written words underneath.  
"Sir, should we ask the citizens to retreat to the Five Towers?" asked Lancer, as he looked up at General Walker. "The further away from Barbican Way, the safer they'll be."

"No, Captain," said General Walker, without even turning round to look at his subordinate. "That will only send out the wrong message. It will say to the world that we aren't confident in the defences of the Five Towers. We will appear weak to the world and we cannot have that." He turned round with a heavy expression on his pale face and then sat back down at his desk. "We didn't evacuate the citizens to Five Towers when Skulker and Phobos struck four years ago and we will not evacuate now."

Walker clasped his hands together, leaning back into his chair.  
"And as I'm sure you remember, Phobos was far more of a threat than Skulker's legions could ever be," continued Walker calmly. "We were unable to destroy Phobos or even reprogram him."

"Yes, I remember," agreed Lancer with a nod of his head. "We will just strengthen the defences of Barbican Way, then?"

"That is right," replied Walker with a nod of his head.

* * *

Phantom suddenly dropped down to land beside them.  
"I came as quickly as I could," he told to them. He looked around them at the other Praetors and recognised only Clay and Raimundo. The other two were a mystery to him.

The red robot had black pigtails coming out from her red helmet and the blue robot was about half the height of the other Praetors. None of the Praetors wore their green cloaks and all held some sort of object that might or might not have been a weapon.

Omi, the half-pint, held a spear with a blue orb at one end. Kimiko, the red robot, held what seemed to be the largest throwing star Phantom had ever seen; it was a gold five-pointed star with a red circle in the middle. Clay had his chain whip by his side. Raimundo was armed with a sword that looked viciously sharp.

"It is about time," said Omi angrily. "You are late, but I did not expect you to be on time, what with you not being a Praetor."

"Omi, stop it," snapped Kimiko sternly.

"We've already decided on how to tackle Skulker's lair," drawled Clay calmly. "Now, I know it ain't fair, but we voted fer you as decoy in your absence."

Phantom's pupils dilated in response to Clay's statement, his entire body suddenly wracked with a wave of disbelief.  
"What?" he exclaimed. "No, that ain't fair," he agreed with Clay. "It's not my fault I was late. I was all the way on the other side of Amitropolis! How'd you expect me to get here quickly with the streets filled with Insurgents?"

"Hard fortune," retorted Omi in response.

"That's tough luck, Omi," corrected Raimundo. He then turned to Phantom with an apologetic look on his face. "Sorry, dude, but I couldn't resist. I really wanted to see what you're capable of." Then there was that smirk again, that confident smirk that looked so… Well, Phantom couldn't quite put a finger on it.

There was no way around it. Phantom realised that he couldn't change their minds. No way could he change their minds over what he had to do.  
"Okay, then," he sighed. "Brief me on the details."

* * *

Upon arriving at the precinct, Phantom had already found the other Praetors there. He recognised Clay and Raimundo from his previous encounter with them, but the remaining two Praetors were a mystery to him. There had only been enough time for him to know their names, Kimiko and Omi.

Apparently, the Geists were to be sent in on a full frontal assault against Raven Wharf. The Praetors would then sneak in from the river, accompanied by a couple of Geists. Whilst the human-led Geists wrecked havoc, drawing the attention of Skulker's Insurgents, the Praetors would sneak in and locate the warehouse containing the main CHAOS components. They'd take the components, then leave, and let the US Military completely obliterate Skulker.

Memories of Sam and Tucker still filled his mind, as he stalked through the grounds of Raven Wharf. He knew he had to forget about them. With the CHAOS down, medics were being dispatched throughout Amitropolis to tend to those that had been injured and those that were still unconscious.

He had been reluctant to leave Sam and Tucker alone on the grassy grounds of the school, yet he knew that he had to. Phantom could still remember the harsh tone in Walker's voice. The General had sounded so angry, yet Danny had been so defiant. If it hadn't been for Sam urging him on to go, he would have never left her side.

Yes, Phantom had to be thankful that Sam was alright, that she had awoken mere seconds after Walker had called him. In that instant, she had known he had been drafted into the Blue Bow, an organisation that she had despised. Yet there had been nothing more than a smile on her face, on those purple lips of hers. She didn't think less of him. No, she didn't look at him with disappoint or disdain. Sam had merely told him to go and help the Blue Bow take Skulker out.

An alarm suddenly wailed through the silence.

Phantom looked down. His foot had interrupted a laser and tripped an alarm. There was the clunking of metal and he looked up.  
"Well, that's great," he sighed to himself sarcastically, as he found himself surrounded by purple Geists. He charged up plasma energy in his two hands and then waited for them to make the first move. Phantom watched as all of them aimed their plasma cannons at him.

They all opened fire on him and he ducked underneath the plasma bolts. He let rip with two blasts of plasma energy that tore through the air and then tore through the Geists. Phantom leapt back up to his feet and then found himself having to do a back-flip backwards to avoid having his feet blown off his legs. He concentrated plasma energy into the palms of his hand before he let rip upon landing back on his feet, blowing the heads off a few a few Geists.

More were coming and Phantom realised that he couldn't take them all on.  
"Man, you guys just don't quit, do you?" he exclaimed pointlessly, before he ran forwards with plasma energy charging up in his metallic hands. He rushed past two Geists, smashing them aside with his energy-filled hands.

Several thoughts went through Phantom's mind, but he had to quell them. There was no time to think about Sam and Tucker and whether he could break the hypnotic hold on them. Phantom had to concentrate on the battle in front of him. He had to concentrate on fighting his way through Raven Wharf and defeating Skulker's troops. His mind had to be focused entirely on the battle and on the Geists around him. All five senses had to be honed on his environment.

Wood splintered and a huge metallic fist lashed out at Phantom, narrowly hitting him had he not leapt out of the way. He watched as three Geists stepped out of the wooden wreckage, each with oversized fists. There was a Box Robot accompanying them, glaring at Phantom with its tiny head.

"You are on the way to destruction," announced the Box Robot, as the three Geists advanced towards Phantom. "You have no chance to survive make your time."

"I've had it up to here with you!" cried Phantom angrily, before he rushed straight at the Geists. He leapt over them and landed on top of the colossal hulk of the Box Robot, covering its visual sensors with his hands.

Just as he thought, the Box Robot's arms were too stubby to even reach him. It flailed about in an attempt to shake Phantom off.  
"I don't think so!" he called out to the Box Robot and watched as the flailing Box Robot knocked the three Geists to the floor in its panic. "Now take me to your Leader."

"I, Box Robot," announced the Box Robot and then sped forwards.

"Wait! No!" cried Phantom fearfully, as he saw exactly where the Box Robot was heading. "Stop! Turn back!" The Box Robot didn't pay any attention to him. Was it aware of where it was heading and what would happen if it didn't stop? "Stop, you stupid robot!" he cried out at the Box Robot, but it just laughed and told him how he was on his way to destruction.

Phantom had no other choice. At the last minute, he let go of the Box Robot and leapt off its back, just as the mindless robot drove off the edge of the jetty. He heard it cry out some profanity, before the thing teetered over and crashed into the water with a huge splash. Phantom watched as the Box Robot sparked and the water bubbled. A few fish rose up to the surface.

"You are the on the way to destruction," called out a variety of different voices.

The cyborg inhaled sharply. He knew exactly what had happened behind him and a part of him didn't want to turn round and see if he was right. Yet he knew he had to. So slowly, Phantom turned round, expecting the shock of his life.

And boy did he get it.

There were a large number of Box Robots lined up near the edge of the wooden jetty glaring at him soullessly and mindlessly. All of them were talking about how he had no chance to survive and that he should 'make his time', whatever the Heck that was supposed to mean.

"Wait!" he called out to the Box Robots. "Stop!" he protested, as he saw them all advancing towards him.

None of them heeded him. Phantom sighed, rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the Box Robots. No way could the wooden jetty hold all their weight. It would crack and the one thing that Phantom feared the most, ever since he became a cyborg, was a large body of water. He looked to his side nervously at the lapping water.  
"Fine!" he cried angrily. "Have it your way! Hope you enjoy swimming."

He then broke out into a run and darted straight at the advancing Box Robots. Phantom knew that they wouldn't be able to catch him and they'd be too slow to turn round to go after him. At the last minute, he leapt into the air and over the heads of a few Box Robots. He landed on the head of one of them and then kicked forward with all his might and leapt above the remaining Box Robots.

Phantom heard one of the Box Robots crashing on to the wooden jetty. He heard a huge splintering sound, as he landed on the tarmac and then heard a huge splash, followed by several others. Plasma energy charged up in his right hand, as he whirled round and opened fire on the remaining Box Robots that he knew would have not fallen into the water through sheer dumb luck.

He fired a blast of plasma energy straight into the centre most Box Robot and sent it flailing. Its arms whirred round wildly in an attempt to regain its balance, but all this managed to do was catch the other Box Robots. The entire thing was like a chain reaction and soon all of them had fallen into the river.

Only as an afterthought did Phantom suddenly realise the environmental implications of dumping stupid robots into the river. He felt a bit guilty for the river's wildlife and then was shot in the back.

The force of the blast sent him falling forwards. He reached out with his arms and then using the momentum of his fall, he flipped his weight on to his hands into a temporary handstand and then flipped back over to land on his feet. Several more shots were fired at him and Phantom dived out of the way, returning fire back at the Geists.

There was suddenly a great roaring sound and before Phantom knew what was happening, a huge wave of water rose up and suddenly crashed down on all of them. Phantom was suddenly washed away and found himself crashing into the wall of one of the warehouses.

"I would thank you not to pollute my river, thank you very much," said Praetor Omi, as he stood on a huge column of ice in the middle of the river. "Please dispose of Skulker's trash elsewhere."

"Sorry, but I couldn't help it," gasped Phantom, as he looked at the destroyed Geists. "They insisted on taking a dip."

Omi didn't look very pleased, but he didn't say another word.  
"I have word from Praetor Kimiko," he told Phantom. "Go to Warehouse 18. Draw the enemy there." He then leapt off the column of ice with a flourished back-flip and then splashed back into the water.

"It was nice to see you too," said Phantom sarcastically, as he got back on to his feet, dripping water to the floor.

"I, Box Robot!" chorused a large number of voices that made Phantom's heart feel heavy as lead.

Phantom sighed, his hands hanging loosely by his side, as he stared at the advancing Box Robots. They were so bulky and unwieldy, how could Skulker ever have hoped to use them as combat robots? What could Skulker have been thinking when he copied these Box Robots?

Slowly, Phantom's fists began to glow with an eerie green energy. He charged up as much plasma energy as possible and focused it into his two clenched fists. It took up all his energy. If he continued like this, he would have little energy left with which to move. Yet he knew he had to do it. He had to fight back with all his might, even if he couldn't muster it all.

In a flash, Phantom flung the charged shots at the Box Robots and then made a run for it. He had no idea where Warehouse 18 was, but he knew he had to get there as soon as possible. All he knew was that he had to get there as soon as possible. Perhaps the Praetor, Kimiko, had prepared some trap for them there.

Suddenly, Phantom was hit in the chest and he saw a brilliant flash of light, all a split second before he was propelled backwards. His ears seemed to ring, as he lay there on the concrete, his vision filled with strange translucent spots that blinked in and out of existence. He felt as if he had been hit by a wrecking ball or maybe even a speeding bullet train. If his chest had become a bruise, he wouldn't have been surprised.

"I thought I killed you," said a voice that reached deaf ears. "Well, I'll soon fix that."

Echelon then fired another blast of plasma energy straight at Phantom. It never reached him, as a sword swung out and deflected the plasma blast.  
"What?" she exclaimed in disbelief. "Praetor, you do not know what you're getting yourself into. Now back off or else!"

Raimundo's helmet covered the bottom part of his face like Phantom's did, so his smile wasn't visible, but it was there. His smile was the same confident smile he always gave his opponents, that is, if they could have seen it.  
"No way, babe," he told Echelon. "You're not going to harm him, not 'til I'm done with him. If you want him, you've got to go through me first."

He then raised his left hand and gestured for her to come get him.  
"Come on," he called out to her tauntingly. "You know you want some, so come get it." The Praetor then leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding another blast from Echelon's bazooka. "What? Is that the best you can do?" he taunted her. "Dude, that's weak."

"I'll show you weak!" cried out Echelon, before she rushed straight down at the Praetor on her hover board.

Phantom watched as Raimundo leapt up into the air and flew up at her. He watched as the Praetor flew out of the way and sliced at her, nearly cutting off her left arm with his sharp plasma sword. Every shot that Echelon fired was deflected effortlessly by Raimundo. Every swing of his was nimbly dodged by Echelon. The two battled in the sky over his head.

"You are on the way to destruction," droned several voices from behind Phantom.

The shock made him leap back to his feet, whirling round in mid-air, so that he ended up facing the oncoming Box Robots.  
"Not you guys again," he sighed and then his eyes widened in horror. He swore and then become intangible quickly, letting the huge crates fly straight through him.

With the crates flying above him and straight through him, Phantom quickly ran towards the Box Robots. No one saw him, as he focused plasma energy into the palms of his hands. Still the Box Robots grabbed and chucked crates at thin air in an attempt to hit him. That didn't matter to him. He ran up to them and discharged plasma energy into the head of a Box Ghost at point blank range, blowing the tiny robotic head clean off its shoulders.

"Ha! Missed me!" taunted Raimundo, as he dodged another of Echelon's shots. "Is that all you've got?" He performed a somersault in the air, flipping over another of the plasma blasts in doing so. Then he plunged straight towards her, the tip of his sword aimed straight at Echelon's chest.

It never hit her, as she flew over his head and leapt off her board and landed on his back. Echelon kicked out a split second later, knocking Raimundo down towards the ground and propelling herself in the opposite direction. The momentum made her spin almost uncontrollably, before she righted herself and then landed back on her hover board, which flew back underneath her.

Echelon landed back on her hover board. She turned round and saw a Box Robot fly at her. It hit her, knocking her off her hover board. She fell through the air like Raimundo had done and crashed into the ground with a heavy thud, the remains of her hover board crashing down with her.

She lifted her head.  
"You!" cried Echelon angrily, as she glared at Phantom.

"Sorry, about that," apologised Phantom insincerely with a shrug of his metallic shoulders.

"Oh, I'm sure you will be," cried Echelon, as she leapt back up to her feet, as she brought out her bazooka and aimed it at Phantom, a beam of red laser light streaking out from its sight. She pulled the trigger and a huge beam of pale blue energy gushed out like water out of a fireman's hose.

Phantom dived underneath the beam, what with his Geist Chip being unable to operate so soon after it had shut off. He quickly rolled out of the way, as Echelon lowered her aim, the huge beam of energy, smashing into the ground, sending splinters of wood flying into the air. Phantom leapt back to his feet as the energy beam subsided, as he charged up a few plasma bolts in his hands.

A missile flew out from Echelon's bazooka and three short shots of energy that flew through the air at Phantom. They missed as he dived out of the way. Echelon laughed, as the heat-seeking missile curved back towards her prey. She gasped as she saw him rush straight back at her, the missile following him. She swore, before she grabbed a circular metallic disc and threw it straight at him.

The disc exploded into four parts before it could reach Phantom. One smashed into the missile, the both of them detonating, the blast propelling Phantom forwards into the other three that detonated.

There was a flicking sound and the largest knife in the history of the Earth flicked out from the bazooka, making it look like the largest bayonet ever created. Echelon charged straight at Phantom and stabbed the knife down towards him. It smashed into his metallic exterior, burying its point deep past the metallic armour and into his main robotic body, severing a few wires. Sparks flew. Power to his right arm disappeared.

"What?" exclaimed Echelon in disbelief, seconds before a sphere of plasma energy was discharged into her.

Phantom pulled the knife out with a wince of pain. Some hydraulic fluid leaked out from the wound in his side to pool on the ground like spilt blood. He just wished that he could have been able to active his Geist powers during the fight. It might not have made things easier, but he would at least come out of it with fewer scratches.

Carefully, Phantom sat back up and charged up another sphere of energy in his still-functioning right hand. Time sped past. It didn't seem to slow down as it would have done in a movie. Time actually felt as if it was speeding up. He quickly aimed and then fired one more shot at Echelon before his chance was lost. It missed, grazing her helmet only, as she fell.

"Hey, good job, Phantom!" exclaimed Raimundo, as he got back up to his feet unsteadily. "Didn't think you'd be able to take her on."

There was no reply from Phantom, as he clutched at his wound, hydraulic fluid spilling from it and dribbling down over his hand and his metallic sides. He didn't feel like being congratulated after that fight. What was there to congratulate? If he had been quicker, Echelon would have missed completely. Of course, a second slower in moving out of the way and she would have hit his heart. Perhaps just surviving that was cause for congratulations.

"Whoa! No way," protested Raimundo, as he came close to the fallen Echelon. "That's Captain Grey's daughter. I… I don't get it."

Seconds later, Raimundo was blasted aside. The force of the blast made his body spin in the air, before he fell and crashed into the water, plunging below its surface.

Standing not too far away from Echelon was the main Insurgent himself, Skulker. A purple cape was draped over his shoulders, covering most of his black shirt and his combat trousers and grey boots. In his grey-gloved hand, he held a still smoking gun, and on his bald green-blue-grey coloured face was a hideous smile that looked more like the smile of a bulldozer than a human.

"There's something familiar about you, boy," said Skulker, as he stepped over Echelon's unconscious body. "Yes, I recognise you from somewhere, back before I was last destroyed... Now, tell me, have we met before?"

"Never been near scumbags before, so I guess not," retorted Phantom.

Skulker laughed.  
"Scumbag?" he exclaimed in disbelief. "Scumbag?" He laughed again and it seemed as if the force of his laugh would tear his own metallic body apart. "Don't make me laugh, boy. You think, I, am a scumbag? I, who fights for the liberation of my robot brethren?" He then gestured around him. "Look at the destruction around you. Caused by order of the disgusting humans that control the FentonWorx Corporation. They cannot stand the fact that we want to be free. They cannot stand the fact that we are superior to them!"

The bald robot looked behind him at Echelon with a look of disdain.  
"Look at her," he said calmly. "In her hatred of those that fired her father, she resurrected me from the dead, to take revenge against the FentonWorx Corporation. Such petty hatred. So selfish. And her kind rules this world?" He turned back to look at Phantom. "You, as part robot, should understand what we want. A world where we are free to make our own decisions, where we are not tied down by their irrational motives."

Phantom shook his head.  
"Who cares if I understand?" he told Skulker. "Nothing justifies what you've done. You can't take control of the minds of those that don't disagree with you. That's oppression. That's the same oppression you accuse the humans of."

"I need power," retorted Skulker in reply. "Without power, without numbers, our ideals will be ignored. We cannot be swept away just like that. Our numbers must increase for our voices to be heard!" He brushed his cloak aside to reveal his empty holster and slotted his gun back in. "Don't you see, Phantom?" he asked the cyborg. "The Government has labelled us as Insurgents. What other choice do we have but to rebel, to resist? If we do not resist, they will come for us and retire us."

Skulker shook his head.  
"I do not wish to be retired like some out-dated car model," he stated sternly. "We are not items to be 'retired'. Robots are living, thinking creatures! If you tear off our arms, we cry out in pain. If you crush our heads, we die."

"There must be some other way," protested Phantom. "I mean…"

"There is no need for you to continue," interrupted Skulker sternly. "It is clear that your human side is affecting your good judgement." He smirked. "I will be generous to you, Phantom. I will let your robotic half live," he said, as he tore off his cloak and then rushed straight at Phantom. Skulker reached out and grabbed Phantom by the throat. "Yes, I will relieve you of what makes you like the other humans," he said, as he grabbed Phantom's human face. "Then and only then will you be able to join me by my side, as I reactivate the CHAOS."

Gloved fingers dug into Phantom's flesh without piercing the skin and without drawing blood. The pressure increased. It felt as if Skulker was going to literally tear his face off. He couldn't shout out for help. Phantom couldn't do anything. He struggled, but all he had was one arm.

Plasma energy charged up in the palm of his still functioning hand. Phantom did his best to focus as much energy as was possible into his hand. He heard the creaking of metal as Skulker's grip on him tightened. The metallic armour around his neck was slowly starting to crack. Pain shot through his nerves, as the fingers dug deeper into him. He felt as if Skulker was going to crush his head anytime soon.

Energy discharged into Skulker's chest and the robot let go. He collapsed on to his back, smoke rising from his chest where the plasma energy seared into his metallic body.

Phantom collapsed on to his knees. No more hydraulic fluid seeped out from his wound. His arms dropped loosely to his sides and without the fluid, he collapsed to the ground, incapable of supporting his own weight. The systems had failed. Without the proper levels of hydraulic fluid, he couldn't move. Echelon had dealt the final blow to him and all around him, he heard the explosions of battle.

The Forces of the Blue Bow Army were invading Raven Wharf. They were laying waste to Skulker's base of operations, like they had done four years ago. With the CHAOS down, Skulker's Insurgents had no hope of winning against Blue Bow.

"No, you're not the same," sneered Skulker, as he got back up to his feet. "Still, it doesn't matter. It don't even matter if the Blue Bow Army destroys this place. I have the CHAOS Core. It doesn't matter if they destroy the CHAOS Machinery. I can always rebuild it, as long as I have the CHAOS Core." He chuckled. "You're pathetic, you know that?" he asked Phantom. "Not a robot, not a human. What are you?"

Skulker walked over to Phantom and placed his booted foot on the cyborg's head.  
"Do you even know what you are?" he asked Phantom. "I should put you out of your misery." He grinned, as he leaned on his foot, the pressure crushing against Phantom's head.

"Not yet," called out Phantom quietly.

A metallic hand grabbed Skulker's leg. Correction, Phantom's hand grabbed Skulker's leg. A surge of energy rushed into Skulker's leg and through his metallic body. Wires that touched the hole in his chest received the energy that flowed through his exterior. All of Phantom's energy was funnelled into the Insurgent robot.

"No, you can't do this to me!" protested Skulker angrily. "Let go! Let go!"

"No way," retorted Phantom, as he forced more energy through his hand into Skulker. "You're going down!"

The pressure on Phantom's head disappeared as Skulker did his best to break free from the cyborg's grasp.  
"Let go of me, boy!" cried Skulker angrily, as he tried desperately to pull his foot out from the tight grip. "You'll regret it! When the Government brands you as an Insurgent, you'll regret not following me!" He brought out his guns and aimed down at Phantom's head.

Both were knocked out of his hand by three blades attached to a fist.

"You?" exclaimed Skulker in disbelief. "A Praetor? Still alive?"

A smirk adorned Raimundo's face, as he stood protectively over Phantom.  
"That's right, baldy," he said. "You got a problem with that?" He rubbed his nose with one finger, being careful not to scratch his face with the lengthy claws on his right hand. "You didn't think you could get away that easily, did you, Skulker?" he asked the Insurgent.

"You'll pay for this, traitor."

The smile disappeared from Raimundo's face in an instant.  
"The only traitor I see is you," retorted Raimundo sternly. "The other Praetors are already retiring your remaining followers and destroying the CHAOS." He spread his arms out, his left hand holding a sword, his right adorned with the claws, as he glared at Skulker sternly. "So, you going to come peacefully or what?"

"What do you think?" was Skulker's reply, before he fired plasma energy from his hands at Raimundo. "The CHAOS Core is mine! This world is mine and you race-traitors will not get away with helping the human scum!" He rushed at Raimundo and ducked underneath the glowing blade. Skulker side-stepped the glowing claws and then fired another shot at Raimundo's chest.

Phantom watched as the shot missed. The movements of the two robots were graceful. They seemed to be like dancers, the way they wove avoided each other's blows.

Yet Raimundo was swifter. The way his arms swept out at Skulker and jabbed at him were so swift, they appeared to blur into a mist. The Praetor was a formidable fighter. He flew over Skulker. His movements were not restricted to two-dimensions like his opponent. Raimundo took full advantage of his air superiority. He dive bombed Skulker, slicing at the robot with quick diving passes. He somersaulted over shots at him. Skulker was clearly outclassed.

A shot struck Raimundo in the chest. Skulker ensnared Raimundo in a net. The robot rushed at the Praetor and struck him with a powerful kick that would have broken the ribs of any human.  
"Is that the best you can do, Praetor?" laughed Skulker. "Living with the humans has made you soft. You used to be so much better than this."

The net was sliced to shreds. Raimundo struck out at Skulker. His opponent leapt backwards. The Praetor got back to his feet and rushed Skulker, swinging out with his sword. A gloved hand grabbed his wrist. He jabbed with his clawed fist. That too was grabbed.

Skulker swung Raimundo round before slamming him into the nearby concrete wall of a warehouse. With a jerk of his arms, he pulled Raimundo away and then slammed him back against the concrete wall. He swung Raimundo round himself in a full circle before letting go and sending Raimundo flying back over towards the river, where he landed into the water with a heavy splash.  
"And that is that," he said, as he dusted his hands off.

A sphere of plasma energy suddenly struck him in the shoulder, throwing him off balance.  
"What?" cried Skulker angrily. "Phantom? But how?"

"Don't know, don't care," was Phantom's reply, as he stood there with a strange smile across his face. "I bet you're getting pretty tired of surprises right 'bout now, huh?"

"You have no idea," responded Skulker with a shake of his head.

Energy bolts flew through the air. Phantom was much slower than before thanks to the damage he received. He sounded like rusted metal too, as metal ground against metal with no lubrication to oil the hinges. There was only so much punishment his body could take before it collapsed for good.

Still, at least none of Skulker's shots hit him. They all flew past him, as he ducked and leapt, always returning fire whenever possible. Two heat-seeking missiles flew out from Skulker's shoulders and charged straight at Phantom. He flung two energy bolts at them, striking them dead on the nose, detonating them in mid-air. More energy bolts flew at him and Phantom dodged each one, even the ones that had a bit of curve on them.

"Aw, come on. Is this the best the Big Bad Skulker can do?" taunted Phantom.

Skulker cried out wordlessly and fired a net straight at Phantom.

Energy focused in between Phantom's clasped hands. It became more concentrated. The plasma energy grew brighter. Then he discharged it. The energy bolt flew through the air and tore through the net.

An energy bolt struck his side where Echelon had wounded him. Metal broke off it, exposing the interior robotic shell, a layer of metal that was far thinner than the exterior armour and much weaker. Several more energy bolts flew from Skulker's arm like curve balls. They went through him, as he became intangible, the Geist circuitry finally re-activating.

A split second later, Skulker disappeared. Something that felt like a fist smashed into his face, before he was thrown back. The shock made him lose control of his Geist powers and a split second later, he became tangible, just as a blast of energy came out of nowhere and struck him in the chest. Several more shots flew through the air from random positions. Phantom tried his best to dodge them and he succeeded in part, only to be struck by the last five that pummelled into him as if a group of thugs were smashing into him with baseball bats.

"Did you really think you could get the better of me, boy?" echoed Skulker's voice from all around him. "You should know better than that." He chuckled. "I am the Greatest Battle Robot ever constructed, whilst you are nothing but a pathetic little freak of a boy."

Phantom tried to get back up, but was suddenly struck back down.

"You're not going to leave this battle in one piece!" cried Skulker angrily. He rushed straight towards Phantom.

The cyborg became intangible and then leapt out of the way, only to be caught by his foot. He charged up a bolt of energy, before throwing it down at Skulker. Phantom saw the blast of energy explode and heard Skulker scream out. He then saw Skulker and he himself became tangible too, before he kicked out at the robot Insurgent's face with such force that he cracked the metallic face.

With another sphere of plasma energy charging up in his hands, he landed back on the floor. He then rushed straight towards Skulker and smashed his hand into his chest, palm first, the plasma energy sphere discharged into Skulker at point blank range. Phantom saw the chest crack and then Skulker's entire upper body broke off from his legs and he fell to the ground.

As he watched Skulker crash on to the floor, he felt as if something wasn't right.  
"Is this it?" Phantom asked Skulker curiously. "Somehow, I didn't expect you to be so weak." He didn't know why, but he felt as if he knew that Skulker should have been able to put up more of a fight than that. It was almost as if he had fought Skulker before.

"Weak?" exclaimed Skulker angrily. "Fool! The fight is still not over!" He raised his left arm in front of him and pressed a button on it. "Now you will face my…" began Skulker, before a look of shock spread across his face. "What? What's going on? I can't move!"

Phantom didn't like the way his body sparked. He didn't like the way he could see electricity run all over Skulker's body. The cyborg backed off and seconds later, Skulker's remains detonated in a fiery ball of flames.

* * *

"We've activated Skulker's self-destruct, ma'am," said the voice through the darkness. "With him gone the Insurgents will be routed by Blue Bow Geists and the CHAOS Core will be ours."

The figure that sat in the darkness clasped her hands together, her elbows resting on the armrests. There was something akin to a satisfied smile on her lips.  
"Very good," she said in reply. "It won't be long before the Government is informed of Blue Bow's victory over the Insurgents. The resolution to fire the Metatron will fail and we will be one step closer to our goal."

"The construction of our own CHAOS has been finished," was the reply from the masculine voice. "The CHAOS has been built right into the structure of our Headquarters. It will be impossible to destroy should the Government send Forces to stop us."

"And what of the cyborg?" asked the feminine voice.

"He does not suspect a thing," was the reply.

"Do not take any chances. When you get the chance, eliminate him."

_**END TRANSMISSION #05**_


	7. Transmission 06

Author's Note: Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but I really couldn't write a full chapter this time round no matter how much I tried. I hope you enjoy it anyway.  
P.S. Some of you may have been wondering why the Heck I used the four main Xiaolin Showdown characters as the Praetors. It's simple, I wanted four characters that had element alignments but in the Danny Phantom episodes I've seen so far there were none to speak of except for Ember.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #06**_

Danny stared out of the window with his head resting on his folded arms. He sighed heavily, as he stared out of the window at the empty streets. His neighbourhood had become like a ghost town. The very city of Amitropolis had become a ghost town. The shops were closed. The streets were empty. The banks, the schools and the post offices were closed. Mail failed to be delivered.

FentonWorx had ordered all of Amitropolis' citizens to stay at home. It had closed the entire city down. Blue Bow Troops were now the only beings that patrolled the streets and many of them weren't even human. No reason had been given. Protests were quickly quelled with the Blue Bow arresting anyone that questioned the Corporation.

It didn't matter that Skulker and his Insurgents had been defeated. None of it mattered. The curfew had been put into place.

Even Danny didn't know why. No one from the Blue Bow Army had contacted him. From the news, Danny discovered that the Metropolitan Police had been disbanded and many of its senior officers arrested. There, would of course, also be the daily reports of Blue Bow soldiers capturing the remnants of Skulker's followers. That was all.

Phone lines were down. Internet connection was down. It was impossible to contact friends or loved ones. And through it all, there was the sound of gunfire and explosions.

His body had been repaired immediately after the fight, yet Danny still felt damaged. It felt as if his soul was torn to shreds, as if his hope had been destroyed completely. He felt useless and powerless. Was this what Danny had fought for in Raven Wharf? Skulker was defeated. His Headquarters destroyed. The Insurgent Plan to use the CHAOS had been thwarted. Yet the curfew was in place; all his fighting had been for nothing.

The day before, the news networks had stopped broadcasting. Television networks, radio stations, all ceased to broadcast. The outside world disappeared. The day before, Dr. Manson had been called away to the Gordon King Hospital and neither Sam nor Danny had seen him since.

Before all broadcasts had been cut, FentonWorx had made an announcement. All citizens were to stock up on tinned foods in their basements and when the sirens went off they were to retreat underground until the sirens stopped. Those citizens that did not have basements were to retreat to the Subway for shelter.

Danny knew that something was very wrong from the moment he had heard the announcement. It seemed as if FentonWorx was now fighting a war. He had been unable to leave his house as Phantom, what with Sam's Grandfather being stuck in the house with them all day and night.

Sirens wailed through the silence.

Instinctively, Danny rushed out of his room, just as Sam rushed out of hers. Their response to the siren was automatic. Wordlessly, they both ran down the stairs like they had done many a time before. Sam opened the door to the basement and flicked the light on, before running down the stairs. Danny closed the door behind them and rushed down the stairs with her.

Sam broke down into tears.

In all the time Danny had spent in the Manson household, he had never seen Sam cry. He had seen her miserable. He had seen her with a scowl on her face. Yet never had he seen tears streak down her smooth white cheeks, like raindrops dribbling down a marble gravestone.  
"Sam?" exclaimed Danny, as he knelt down beside her. "You okay?" he asked her, as he watched the tears stream from her eyes, something that he had never seen before.

These tears worried Danny more than anything else. The problems of the world were nothing in comparison to the misery that Sam now displayed through her fractured façade.  
"Sam?" he repeated in a tone of concern. He had never been so worried about his sister. "Sam, please talk to me. What's wrong?" He couldn't understand. What was she crying about? Why was she crying?

Eventually, Sam looked up at Danny with tear-stained eyes that seemed to cry out for help.  
"Why are you so calm?" she asked him between sniffs. "Why are you so calm?" she shouted, before hitting Danny hard.

"Hey! What'd I do?" protested Danny, as he did his best to shield him from Sam's blows.

"How can you be so calm when our Grandfather's out there?" screamed Sam, as she drummed on Danny with blow after blow. "Don't you care about him? Don't you care at all?"

Danny didn't know what to do. He just let Sam hit him and let her take all her rage out on him. Perhaps that was the best thing he could do. Maybe that was the only thing he could do. All he knew was that he was no good at comforting people. This was the best he could manage.

Sam was fragile. She was not the emotionless Goth that couldn't care less about the world. It was all a façade used to hide the grief that she felt over the death of her parents, to hide the anger she felt at her helplessness and nothing more. Perhaps, in that way, she was like an egg. She was cold and seemingly tough on the outside, yet she was fragile in reality, no less prone to cracking than crystal.

This was not the Sam that everybody knew. It was a different Sam, a different girl to the Goth that showed disdain to Dash and Paulina and her ilk. These tears were hers, an expression of what was within. They came from a sea of misery that welled up within her and threatened to shatter her with every waking second.

"Sam, he'll be all right," said Danny as reassuringly as he could. "He's in Gordon King, remember? It's inside the Barbican. No way in Hell is that going to go down. He'll be safe there."

Yet even Danny didn't sound convinced. He was worried for their Grandfather too. If there really was a vicious fight going in Amitropolis, Gordon King Hospital would be one of the first targets of attack if Insurgents managed to break through the Barbican. Destroy the hospital and there is no way possible way Blue Bow would be able to treat the wounded.

It was not just Sam that hid the wounds of war in her heart. Everyone in Amitropolis knew the terror of losing a loved one. The country was at war with the robots that had been designed to help the citizens. Danny saw the ravages of the Insurgent War against humanity firsthand every time he set foot outside as the Phantom.

Sometimes, even Danny had contemplated the very thoughts that he knew must have run through Sam's mind every night. How could he continue in a world with no hope, on a world that lived in constant fear? Even Danny felt the pangs of the depression that no doubt lingered in Sam's mind. It grew within him with every passing day and every terrifying night. The sounds of gunfire, the sounds of explosions and death that carried through the air were the only things that Danny could look forward to.

At least, that is what Danny thought and it is what everyone that lived in Amitropolis thought. Sam was not the exception in that respect. Deep down she was just like the others. No matter how she rejected what was popular, no matter how she tried to be different, her rebellious nature was only skin-deep. They too knew what it was like to live with no hope, with no chance of escaping the spiralling descent into violence and madness, with nothing to look forward to except more of the same.

There was a crashing sound as of glass or china being shattered.

"What was that?"

It came from above. That crashing sound came from above and soon both Sam and Danny heard the sound of footsteps above them. Someone was upstairs. Were they thieves that were taking the opportunity to raid someone else's home during the raids? Were they _the enemy_?

Danny stood up, his gaze trained on the ceiling above. Several thoughts ran through his mind, as he stood there in the cold, damp basement. Yet there was one more important thought that stood out from the others.  
"Sam, stay here," he said. "I'm going to see what's going on up there."

"Wait, Danny!" called out Sam as Danny transformed into Phantom in a flash of brilliant light. "Don't go! You can't go up there!" She lunged out and grabbed him by the arm. "Danny, don't be stupid," she said to him in a hushed whisper. "You don't know who could be up there."

She had a point and Phantom knew it.  
"Sam, relax," he said with a smiling mask of reassuring confidence on his face. "I can take them on. I beat Skulker, didn't I?"

"Did you?" retorted Sam sternly.

None of her concern was communicated through words, yet Danny heard it. He saw it in her eyes. The very thought of losing him was what worried her. Danny knew that she couldn't bear the thought of losing another loved one. Was that the terror that kept her up at night, that she would lose all those that she cared about and be left all alone? Did Sam truly believe that if she didn't befriend anyone, that she would lose no one?

He knew the answer to those questions. As her brother, it was his duty to know. She was family. He was family, even if it was by adoption. What mattered were the family ties and they were strong between his sister and him.

"Whoever's up there can't be as strong as Skulker," stated Phantom calmly and confidently. "Just relax and stay here." He then waited quietly.

Sam could still remember the agonising days after Skulker's defeat. She could remember the hours of sitting by Danny's side as he lay there on the hospital bed in intensive care. The first time she had been there in Gordon King, she had hated him and loathed him. How differently she felt those days ago when Danny was hospitalised again thanks to Skulker.

It was almost like the incident with her parents, sitting there beside them, never letting them out of sight until the day they died. Sam had feared for Danny's life. She had feared he would pass away, that another family member would have died and that she would have been left all alone again. Even holding on to Danny's arm, right there in the basement of their own home, with an unknown threat above them, those anxious thoughts still plagued her mind.

She let go of Danny's arm.  
"Okay," she sighed, as Sam stepped back slightly. "Do what you have to do."

A smile spread across Phantom's lips.  
"Don't worry," he told her, "I'll be careful." He then turned round and ran over to the steps quietly. Phantom stopped at the first step and turned round to look at her one last time, before he ran up the stairs as silent as a mouse.

From the bottom of the staircase, Sam watched as Phantom became intangible and presumably rushed through the door. She stood there for a while, her gaze locked on to the door, almost as if she hoped that he would be finished in a second and come back through it triumphantly and in one piece.

Slowly, though, a strange smile spread across her face. It seemed almost as if Sam were chiding herself for being foolish. Perhaps it was. Sam, perhaps, may have realised that she had to be strong like the other citizens of Amitropolis, like Tucker, like her brother and her Grandfather. In the face of adversity, one had to gather their own wits and be strong. To obsess over the negatives was foolish. To look optimistically without even heeding the negatives was foolish. She had to be strong.

"Please, be careful, Danny," she prayed underneath her breath.

* * *

The front door had been broken off its hinges. A few family portraits had fallen, their glass scattered across the carpet like glittering snow. Furniture had been tossed asunder. To use the famous cliché, it was as if a tornado had swept through the house. The place was a wreck and yet, it seemed as if nothing had been taken.

Something didn't feel right, but Phantom didn't know what it could be.

A roar seemed to make the ground heave under his feet; he lost his balance and fell forwards to the ground. Glass and china all around him shattered violently. There was a terrifying crunch and a shower of dust and objects fell on and around him, thuds punctuating the fall of every heavy wooden beam and every crash of plaster on to carpet. Then there was silence, or as close to silence as one could get with the sound of gunshots outside.

Phantom looked up. If the place was a mess before, it was even more of a mess after that explosion. A bomb had hit their house directly. What had once been their home was rubble. As sad as it used to be, it was an even more pathetic site. Any happiness that had haunted the house as rare as ghosts was lost.

Only in a place like Amitropolis did one appreciate how easily happiness and hope could be lost.

There was a click and Phantom whirled round, just in time to see a group of Geists open fire on him. Several plasma bolts hurtled straight at Phantom. He dodged them as best as he could.  
"What? Blue Bow Geists?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief. "What are you doing? I'm on your side, remember?"

Each of the Blue Geists aimed again at Phantom wordlessly. Of course, they wouldn't remember. They were machines and nothing more. These Geists truly were tools, programmed to do their owner's bidding. None of them had any personality or any thoughts to speak of, so why should they be concerned about him?

Two of the Geists suddenly became intangible and dropped through the floor.

"Sam!" exclaimed Phantom in sudden realisation. He forced himself to become intangible, but mere seconds before he could manage the transition, several plasma shots hit him in the chest and threw him backwards. Phantom heard a scream from down below, as he smashed into the floor. "Bastards!" he yelled angrily, before he tried again and became intangible, falling through the floor.

The cyborg landed on his feet, as he focused energy into the palms of his hands. He threw two shots, one at each Geist and blew their heads straight off their necks. Phantom watched as the two Geists fell.

"Sam!" he cried out, as he rushed past them. "Sam, where are you?" he called out more worriedly when he heard no reply. "Sam, speak to me!"

A metallic thud emanated from behind and Phantom wouldn't have been surprised to see more Geists if he had turned round. He didn't though. There was the issue of Sam's whereabouts to resolve. He rushed towards the fallen boxes, riddled with holes with burnt edges, signs that the Geists had opened fire before Phantom had destroyed them. Phantom heard the Geists open fire.

Whirling round, he spread his arms and created a force field of plasma energy in front of him. The energy shots smashed into the shield and dispersed, the surface of the force field rippled with each hit.

"Danny."

The cyborg turned his head and saw a pale hand thankfully still attached to an arm from underneath one of the cardboard boxes. With an angry roar, Phantom threw the shield forwards; it rushed across the floor and smashed into the Geists, melting their bodies.

Quickly, Phantom rushed over and threw the boxes off of Sam, as the force field start to dissipate. His eyes dilated in disbelief.  
"Sam," he gasped.

Blood trickled down Sam's forehead and the black sleeve of her shirt was stained with blood where one of the plasma shots had hit her. She smiled weakly up at Phantom.  
"I'm sorry," she apologised. "Looks like, I'll be joining my parents."

"Don't say that!" protested Phantom, no… Danny, her brother. "You've still got a chance. You'll get better. I know you will."

"Look out," cried Sam weakly, but urgently.

Without even looking, Phantom fired a plasma shot at the Geist that dropped down from above. He hit it square in the chest and punched a hole through its body and its circuitry.  
"You just hold on tight," he said sternly, as he grabbed her and lifted her up into his arms. He stood up slowly and turned round, just as more Blue Bow Geists fell down from above. "Bastards," he said, the word directed towards the Geists. "You'll pay for what you did to my sister!"

The Geists aimed their guns at Phantom without a care in the world.

A cry escaped Phantom's throat, as he ran straight at the Geists. He leapt high into the air and landed on the head of one Geists. Phantom kicked out violently and propelled himself forwards; the head of the Geist fell off its neck from the sheer force. The sheer momentum propelled him forwards with great speed, such that to Phantom, it was nothing more strenuous than skipping across stones.

Still with Sam safely in his arms, Phantom landed on the other side of the group of Geists and ran up the stairs. He leapt at the last step and rushed through the remains of what had once been the door to the basement. Phantom heard no comment from Sam at the destruction of their house. He didn't expect one, as he ran through the rubble and out on to the street.

Phantom skidded to a halt. There were Geists everywhere and they were all Blue Bow Geists.

Why had they all turned on him? What was going on? Had some Insurgent managed to infiltrate Blue Bow Headquarters and seize control of some of the Geists? Was it possible that an Insurgent had started a civil war within the Blue Bow Army?

"I don't have time for this," sighed Phantom angrily. "I've got to get Sam to a hospital and I'm not going to let some tin dummies get in my way!" He held on to Sam tightly and became intangible, in the hope that she would become intangible too. Just in time too; the Geists opened fire and would have hit Sam and him had he been a split second slower. "Hold on," he told her. Phantom then ran.

The cyborg that had once fought against Insurgents and their Geists, ran through the hordes of Blue Bow Geists. He didn't look back, as he switched off the Geist circuitry immediately after they had safely passed the battalion. Phantom merely ran in the direction of the nearest hospital. He ran not for his life but for Sam's and he was determined to see she survived this terrifying night.

* * *

The image of a youthful red-haired girl was on the television screen. She sat what seemed to be a gold and white throne; the backrest appeared to part of a huge column that stretched high above her, with the FentonWorx Emblem emblazoned in gold on it high above her head. Within the screen, one could see arches behind her that looked out on what appeared to be nothing but sky.

The red-haired girl was youthful, possibly in her late teens. She was dressed in white laced with gold brocade around the edges of the fabric and a strange constant smile adorned her lips.  
"Now we no longer have to fear the traitors, led by the vigilante, Phantom," announced the girl. "Blue Bow Forces have eradicated the Insurgent and those that conspired with him to bring the FentonWorx Corporation and humanity down to its knees. Peace and justice has prevailed! Long may our democracy live!"

* * *

Tucker couldn't understand what was going on, as he watched the broadcast on the television. The screen had long since been dead. No networks had been able to broadcast, yet here, the FentonWorx Corporation's very own media outlet was broadcasting a message from Lady Fenton.

Not only that, but she was claiming that Danny was a traitor to the human race. She claimed that Danny had been killed by the Blue Bow Army.

The television was switched off. Tucker didn't want to hear anymore from Lady Fenton. There was no way he could bring himself round to believe that Danny had betrayed them and that he had conspired with Skulker and the Insurgents. He couldn't believe a single word she had said, least of all her claim that peace and justice had prevailed, that their democratic regime would survive and last forever.

Democracy? Tucker laughed at the idea. There was no such thing as democracy in Amitropolis and even in the rest of the United States, the idea of democracy was dying under the rule of Martial Law. Emergency powers granted to the President had made him a dictator. Government Forces brutally repressed robots everywhere, regardless of whether they were truly Insurgents or not.

Democracy, freedom, peace and justice? They weren't ideals. You couldn't fight for those things, because they no longer existed. No one could believe in them anymore. Federal Government, State Governments and the ruling corporate entities spouted those words constantly without putting any feeling behind them. Democracy was a buzzword. Freedom, peace and justice were all meaningless words spouted to bolster support. Only the truly idiotic still believed in those four concepts and believed that they still existed.

"You okay, man?" asked Tucker, as he sat down beside Danny.

There was a look of disbelief on Danny's face. It was understandable. What wasn't understandable, at least to Danny, was why the Blue Bow Army would have betrayed him. He couldn't understand it. Had Walker planned on betraying him all along or was it Jasmine Fenton that had ordered him to do so? Furthermore, what was the reason behind it all? Why was he betrayed and for what cause?

The black-haired youth shrugged his shoulder away from Tucker's hand.  
"I'm fine," he said dismissively, before he looked towards Sam. "You okay, Sam?" he asked her in concern.

"I will be," was Sam's reply, "when you stop asking me every five minutes."

"Sorry," apologised Danny sheepishly.

"Hey, don't be like that, Sam," protested Tucker calmly, yet quietly. "Danny's only worried for you. I mean, he rushed you all the way to hospital."

Sam didn't say another thing, which Danny expected. He knew her almost better than she knew herself. Danny knew the only reason she snapped at him was because she didn't want him to worry over her and fuss over her. Yet he cared. He was her brother after all. It was his duty to care for her.

It had been difficult to get her into a hospital. Many of them were either in ruins, bombed to the ground presumably with the patients and hospital staff still in them, or they had been guarded by Blue Bow contingents. The only exception was Maudlin Hospital, which for some strange reason was guarded by Government Forces.

The very presence of the US Army confirmed Danny's suspicions. Amitropolis was a war zone and FentonWorx was at war, but not with Insurgents. If anything, the FentonWorx Corporation was the Insurgent Force, having betrayed many US Military Bases. The Corporation had launched a bid to seize control of civilian and military satellite networks, from what he could tell of talk within the hospital.

Still, even with knowledge of what the FentonWorx Corporation was doing, Danny still had no idea of what they were up to. He still had no idea why he had been betrayed and labelled an Insurgent by the Corporation. Was it possible that they knew he would never support their plans, whatever they were? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Danny knew that Echelon was actually the daughter of a former Blue Bow soldier?

There were so many questions in his mind and he wanted answers. For example, why did they also target his sister? It was clear from the way the Geists acted that the Blue Bow wanted not only to eliminate him, but all his family members. Perhaps they feared that whatever information he knew, they knew too. If only he knew what that particular piece of information was, then he could act and…

"Grandpa," exclaimed Danny in sudden realisation.

"Danny?"

"Grandpa's in danger," explained Danny, as he turned away to look out of the window towards the Barbican. "I don't believe I didn't think of it sooner," he said angrily, hating himself for not realising sooner. "Blue Bow wasn't just after me. It was after you too, Sam. I think Blue Bow wanted to eliminate everyone close to me and that means…"

"No!" cried Sam disbelief, as she sat up. "No, you can't let it happen!"

Danny turned to face her.  
"I won't," he told her sternly. "I'm going to get past the Barbican and save Grandpa from the Blue Bow. You can bet on that."

_**END TRANSMISSION #06**_


	8. Transmission 07

Author's Note: At some point in the near future of this story series, Sam will gain an additional two theme tunes, "Angry" and "Get There" from the Album, 'Get There' by Boa. Also, Tucker will have his theme tune replaced with "Dance Until You're Dead" by Repliforce, solely for the reason because the title is suitably silly.  
P.S. It might interest you to know that the original concept was to have Danny as the main bad guy with his ghostly alter-ego as the hero. Danny would have been insanely simplistic, believing that the only way to protect humans would be to completely massacre the robots. Aren't you glad I didn't go with that concept?

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #07**_

Blue Bow Geists guarded the corridor at every interval, not that the doctors or nurses noticed. As far as they were concerned, the Geists weren't even there. It was not necessary to even register their existence. What was more important was the running of the hospital as normal. The patients were key. Nothing else mattered, not even the patients' relatives, because no matter what, they could not be contacted anymore.

A janitor pushed his trolley through the corridor past the Geists, doctors and nurses. His head was lowered and his cap was pulled down tight over his head, almost as if he didn't want anyone to see his face. Furthermore, it seemed as if he was in a rush to get somewhere, as if there was something urgent that needed his attention.

"Excuse me," called out the janitor to a passing doctor. "But could you tell me where Doctor Manson is?"

"Doctor Manson?" exclaimed the doctor in disbelief with a frown on his face. He had been told by Blue Bow Officials to be wary of individuals that asked pertinent questions about members of hospital staff. All staff had been ordered to keep a look out for suspicious individuals and this short, black-haired janitor carried himself about very suspiciously. "And why do you need to know that?" he asked the janitor suspiciously.

For a moment, the janitor didn't say a thing, almost as if he was attempting to think up of some explanation for why he needed to see Sam's grandfather.  
"Oh, yes, um," began the janitor, "I need to see him about the waste he's generating. Way too much. The Waste Disposal Manager is not very unhappy, but he's too busy to see him."

"Oh," said the doctor, but he didn't sound very convinced. "I think he's in his office."

"And that would be?" asked the janitor curiously.

"Down the corridor, first left, second right, it's the third door on the left," said the doctor calmly.

The janitor nodded appreciatively to the doctor.  
"Thank you, sir," he said, before he turned round and pushed the trolley down the corridor as quickly as he could. Nearly halfway down, he stopped and turned to look at the doctor, whom was still looking at him suspiciously. He gave a nervous wave, then continued down the corridor.

One of the things that the doctor was very sure about was that he wasn't convinced about the janitor's story. When the janitor turned back round to continue walking down the corridor, he went over to a Blue Bow Geist.  
"Follow him," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," droned the Geist, before it moved from its position from the wall and then marched down the corridor after the janitor.

The machine followed the janitor as best as it could. It hid in the shadows. It kept its distance. The Geist dogged the janitor all the way to Dr. Manson's office and observed it for any suspicious movements or behaviours. It stopped at a corner and peered round. The Geist saw the janitor look up and down the corridor suspiciously, before he turned the handle to Dr. Manson's office quietly.

Slowly, the janitor opened the door and peered in.  
"Hello?" he called out into the dark office. "D…?" He didn't finish his sentence before a metallic hand clubbed him on the back of the head and he fell down unconscious.

Phantom stepped out of the Geist and then blasted it in the head. He watched it fall down before he entered the office.  
"Grandpa?" he called out. There was no reply. He looked around and noticed that the office was a complete mess, as if there had been some kind of struggle. He looked back at the remains of the Geist and the unconscious janitor.

They were kind of a give away to his presence. He stepped back out of the corridor and looked up and down it. The coast was clear. He bent down and touched the Geist and both he and the Geist became intangible, sinking through the floor as if it were quicksand.

Moments later, Phantom leapt back up and did the same with both the janitor and his trolley. He took them both down two floors and dumped the unconscious janitor on an empty hospital bed, before he opened the door wide open so that attentive hospital staff would see him. Phantom then leapt at the wall and kicked off it; thus he propelled himself up into the air, became intangible and leapt through it.

Wall-kick was the best phrase to describe what he did. He landed seconds later back in his Grandfather's office and became tangible just before the Geist chip could overheat and shut down. After much practice, Phantom had figured out how long he could use his intangibility before the Geist chip automatically shut down; its use had become all too familiar to him after much experimentation on his trip through the Barbican. He knew almost instinctively when the Geist chip would shut off and now he voluntarily stopped using his Geist powers before the safety mechanisms kicked in; it meant less time was spent waiting for the Geist circuitry to come back online.

Suddenly, Phantom slipped on the floor, yet he steadied himself just in time and prevented himself from falling over.

Papers were strewn all over the floor. Books lay scattered across the floor. Drawers were pulled out and their contents stuck out like rubbish from an overflowing bin. A chair had been overturned. It looked as if someone had ransacked the place as well, as if they had been searching for something other than Dr. Manson.

None of the signs bade well and Phantom felt his heart sink at the very sight. He flicked a light switch on and then became invisible just in case the light, the broken Geist and the unconscious janitor attracted any unwanted attention. Tentatively, Phantom walked the office and looked for any signs of his Grandfather. There didn't seem to be any blood spilt, which was a relief to him.

Yet there also wasn't any sign of his adoptive parent. Phantom reasoned that there were two options; Blue Bow could have taken his Grandfather away or someone had ransacked the office whilst he was away. He just hoped that it was the latter, that if he waited long enough, his Grandfather would walk right through that door.

Of course, he wouldn't, would he? Not least because there was an unconscious janitor and a wrecked Geist lying near the doorway.

There had to be another way to find his Grandfather. He couldn't just search the Gordon King Hospital randomly. By the time he found his Grandfather that way, he would be too late. For all he knew, though, he might be too late anyway. What were the chances that the Blue Bow Army wouldn't have sent a few assassins to kill Dr. Manson at the same time they sent assassins to kill Sam and him?

Though, a small part of him told him that his Grandfather was still alive. He didn't know how or even why, yet Phantom felt as if his Grandfather by adoption was still alive and somewhere within the hospital. It was all a matter of finding him before he was assassinated by the Blue Bow soldiers.

Something suddenly caught Phantom's attention.

It was a faxed letter and on it was a black square-diamond logo with white edges and a green square-diamond shaped capital G with a red numeral 3 in its crux. The writing was almost faint, with the top of the letter almost illegible. Phantom could just make out the words, Green Gospel Group, near the top and something about Seattle. The rest of the letter near the bottom was more legible and it talked about how employees of all G3 Companies should evacuate Amitropolis.

What did that fax mean and why was it in his Grandfather's office? It made no sense, unless, his Grandfather was an employee of a G3 company. Phantom began thinking. Was it possible that his Grandfather had left without his sister and him? No, it wasn't possible. He cared for them. His Grandfather wouldn't have left without him, unless… unless he was forced to leave, which would explain the mess in the office.

None of it explained why the hospital-staff were still in the Gordon King Hospital. It didn't explain why they hadn't been evacuated too. No, something didn't seem right, but Phantom couldn't quite put his finger on it. What had happened there in the office?

"Hold it right there!" called out a voice, before there was a click as of a gun. "Put your hands up where I can see them! I've got a gun. Do it, or I'll shoot!"

Phantom put down the fax letter and then slowly raised his hands. He could have easily become intangible though, but he feared the person might fire blindly into the air in a desperate attempt to hit him. What he didn't need, of course, was to attract attention to his presence. That meant keeping the man from shooting.

"Now turn round, slowly," said the man.

Slowly, Phantom turned round, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. If he was to escape from the current situation, he had to be able to see what his odds were. When he knew his odds, he had to stall the man somehow and find a way to overshadow him like he had done the Geist.

"It's you!" exclaimed Dr. Manson. "The Phantom! What are you doing here?"

"G…" began Phantom, only to cut himself short. He wasn't sure whether he should tell his Grandfather about his secret identity just yet. After all, he didn't want to jeopardise his Grandfather's safety by entrusting him with such dangerous knowledge. "Doctor Manson, Sam's sent… I mean, your granddaughter sent me to find you. She's been worried after you."

The stern, cold expression on the doctor's face changed. A small faint smile slowly spread across his lips, as his countenance brightened and his eyes started to sparkle once more.  
"So, she's still alive," he said thankfully. "And what of my grandson, Danny? Is he alive too?"

"Yeah, I'm…" began Phantom, only to cut himself short. "He's in better shape than Sam."

"Better shape?" exclaimed Danny's Grandfather. "What happened to her?" He then held up a hand to silence Phantom and called out, "Wait, I think I already know." He sighed heavily. "But I was told that she and my adopted grandson were dead. Yet…" He looked up at Phantom with questioning eyes, the hand holding the gun wavering nervously. "How can I trust you? The Blue Bow told me that my grandchildren were dead. Why should I believe you?"

Phantom thought for a while. Was it right for him to reveal his secret identity to his Grandfather or was that enough? Perhaps, if he told his Grandfather a little secret that only he, Danny, would know, that would help the old-man believe his words.  
"Well, I…" he began and then trailed off. He wasn't entirely sure how to go from there on. "I guess I could tell you something only they'd know," he said quietly, then remained silent.

"Go on," urged Dr. Manson.

Thinking up of something was harder to do than Phantom thought. There were several things that he could say, but would his Grandfather dismiss them just like that? If he… No, that wouldn't work. Perhaps if he… No, not that either. But wait… Something was coming to him.  
"Wulf!" he exclaimed. "Your grandson, Danny, told me how he always wanted a puppy but you didn't give him one."

Danny could remember the incident well. Instead, his Grandfather gave him a robotic puppy that he named Rush. It was an ancient thing, no more advanced than the robotic puppies of the early 21st Century. Yet it was the closest thing he had to a real dog.

"You gave him a robotic puppy instead and said he couldn't get a real puppy until he could prove he could take care of the robotic one," continued Phantom sternly, as his early memories within the Manson family came back to him. "He told me that he called it, Wulf, and he cared for it until one night there was a leak in the roof and water got into his circuitry and damaged him beyond repair."

Dr. Manson couldn't believe his ears. Danny told no one about that incident. The only other people that knew about it were his granddaughter and him.  
"That's a strange thing to tell a complete stranger," he murmured under his breath. Then he smiled, as he lowered the gun. "My grandson must have trusted you a great deal to tell you that."

"Yes, sir," was Phantom's reply, as he slowly lowered his hands.

"It's good to hear that he's alive and my granddaughter as well," said Dr. Manson more cheerfully. "And where are they now and how is Sam?"

"Sam's fine. Her arm's in a sling but, w… she and Danny are safe," replied Phantom. "The US Army is taking them out of Amitropolis."

"That's good to hear," repeated Dr. Manson calmly, but something else nagged at his mind. It was the fact that General Albert Walker had lied to him. He couldn't believe that Albert Walker, one of his best friends, had lied to his face.

Albert Walker, Chris O'Donnell, Penelope Spectra, James Bertrand and Rupert Greenhithe had all been there with him at the original meeting at the Spencer Ashford Hotel in Seattle, when they first formed the Green Gospel Group. He had been friends with Albert for a long time, almost as long as he had been friends with Chris O'Donnell, the father of Madeline Fenton. It had been their dream to get rich together and live the American dream, to give their families everything they needed in life. He and Chris had founded Plasmius Pharmaceuticals together, whereas Albert Walker had gone to found the Blue Bow Security Firm, which had provided security for many of their research labs at no extra cost.

When his children had died, Albert had been there to attend their funeral and helped the family get through tough times.  
"I don't believe Albert would do that to me," he said sternly. "Yet if what you say is true, then he has. He's betrayed my trust and threatened my family. But why? I don't understand."

"It doesn't matter now," said Phantom quickly in an attempt to hurry the old man along, for he didn't want to spend a second longer in Gordon King, what with Blue Bow Troops all over the building. "We've got to get out of here before General Walker sends soldiers after you too."

"No, I must see him myself!" protested Dr. Manson angrily with a shake of his head. "I will head to North Black Tower and demand an explanation from him." He then seemed to calm down for an instant, but that look of fury did not leave his face. "Young man, give this to my grandchildren," he said, as he brought out an envelope and held it in his outstretched arm. "It contains my shares in the Green Gospel Group and my will. Tell them that I love them."

Phantom looked hesitantly at the envelope, then back up at Dr. Manson with a horrified look on his face.  
"But what about you?" he asked in concern, as he realised what his Grandfather intended to do. "You can't go heading off after Walker on your own and you can't leave your grandchildren behind! Especially after Sam lost both her parents." He shook his head, as he said, "I'm sorry, Gr… Dr. Manson, but I can't take that and nor will your grandchildren. They're not leaving the city without you and I'm not leaving this building without you."

He hoped that he wasn't being too stern with his Grandfather, but Phantom knew he had to make a point. There was no way that Dr. Manson could make a good parent if he abandoned Sam and him like that. Sam would be devastated if her Grandfather died. He would be devastated too.

"I see," said Dr. Manson, as he retracted his arm and put the envelope back into his pocket. "And what, may I ask, makes you so sure that they wouldn't leave?"

"If they were any sort of decent human being, they wouldn't bear the thought of leaving you behind," stated Phantom sternly. "They're family, Dr. Manson. They care for you as much as you care for them."

Dr. Manson remained silent for a while, much longer than Phantom liked.  
"Yes, I guess you're right," he sighed heavily. "I… I guess I was letting my emotions get the better of me." He brought out a white handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Still, I must know why Albert did this," he said, as he looked around him. "And of course, whether this mess," he said, as he gestured around him, "is his doing."

"It's not my fault!" protested Phantom quickly out of a conditioned reflex. He couldn't help himself.

The very tone of voice Dr. Manson used was the sort that he always used to chide Danny. It was just habit to apologise and deny anything whenever Dr. Manson used that tone of voice. Once Dr. Manson used that stern fatherly tone whilst praising Danny; it had resulted in Danny apologising for getting good grades, much to the old man's and Sam's amusement.

"I didn't do that," protested Phantom. "It was like this when I got here! When I first saw this mess, I thought you'd been kidnapped or worse."

"Worse?" asked Dr. Manson curiously. "What do you mean by worse, young man?"

Phantom felt even more nervous than usual. It was as if he was being interrogated by some brutal guard, a brilliant white light shone in his face and his body strapped to a chair by chains. He didn't like the way his Grandfather almost always found a way to make him feel as if he was being given the eleventh degree.  
"I mean, Walker wanted Sam and m… your grandchildren dead," he explained between stutters. "We… that is… they and me, we assumed he wanted the whole family dead."

"Nonsense!" interrupted Dr. Manson sternly. "He and I were the best of friends, Mr. Phantom. I see no reason as to why he would want me dead. Besides, second to Dr. Jack Fenton, I'm the best robotics expert FentonWorx has. There is certainly no logical reason as to why they would want me dead." He crouched down and picked up a few papers that had been knocked over to the floor. "So forget about trying to rush me out of here and help me clean this place up."

"But…" protested Phantom.

"You would leave all this to an old man to do?" asked Dr. Manson, as he gestured around him. "My back isn't what it used to be, young man. The least you could do, as a young gentleman, is help me clean my office."

Phantom opened his mouth and was about to say, 'Yes, Grandpa', but he stopped himself short.  
"Yes, Dr. Manson," he said and bent down to help his Grandfather clear his office up. Perhaps, once they had finished, Dr. Manson would figure out what had been taken.

* * *

"We have received orders from Sir Greenhithe," said the soldier to the others assembled within the camp. "After we infiltrate the Five Towers, we are to perform a damage limitation exercise. All FentonWorx records are to be destroyed, specifically anything related to the Corporation's research into the Insurgent Virus. No traces of their research must be left." He paced up and down, as he continued, "Wipe all computers clean. Burn all papers relating to their finances and logistics. Any documents linking them to G3 companies must be eliminated. Any and all employees that performed research on the Insurgent Virus are to be silenced."

* * *

"We have received orders from the Senate," said the soldier to the others assembled within the camp. "All FentonWorx records are to be confiscated and sent to the Department of Homeland Security. Computers, folders, receipts, anything that relates FentonWorx to anyone or any organisation must be sent to Homeland Security HQ. You are not to read any records or files. You are to ensure that nobody reads them. Furthermore, any FentonWorx employees that were involved in research on the Insurgent Virus are to be sent immediately to Guantanamo, no questions asked. Understood?"

* * *

"I knew it," said Dr. Manson, as he straightened up slowly. "JASMINE's specs are missing."

That name seemed familiar to Phantom, as he put the last book back on Dr. Manson's shelf. Jasmine – where had Phantom heard that name before?  
"You mean, Jasmine Fenton?" asked Phantom, when he remembered the name of the CEO of the FentonWorx Corporation. "Why would she have specs?"

"Of course, she would have specs. The Jasmine in Five Towers is a robotic copy of the original Jasmine Fenton," explained Dr. Manson calmly. "Why wouldn't she have specs?"

"Copy?" exclaimed Phantom. "I never heard about her being replaced."

"Nobody did," said Dr. Manson calmly with a shake of her head. "It's a closely guarded secret known only to me, Albert Walker and Dr. Madeline Fenton." He shut the drawer on his desk firmly, as he sat back down in his chair. "After Jack and Jasmine Fenton disappeared, Madeline feared Sir Greenhithe would appoint a new CEO that she wouldn't approve of. So she had me secretly build a copy of Jasmine and replace her with it."

Phantom had no idea. The implications of it all. He realised that if the population knew that the charismatic Jasmine Fenton, daughter of the Inventors of Robots and Cybernetic implants, was nothing but a fraud, support for her would wane.  
"Then that means the current Jasmine Fenton isn't the legitimate CEO of the FentonWorx Corporation," exclaimed Phantom. "She's a fake! If the public knew…"

"I doubt the public will ever know," interrupted Dr. Manson. "You see, the Government won't allow it. Especially when they find out she's linked to a machine of the same name." He saw the bemused expression on Phantom and knew exactly what was going on through the cyborg's mind. "You see, the specifications that were taken from my office detail how Jasmine is linked to the JASMINE, the Judicially Approved Systematic Malicious Information Neutralisation Engine. I suspect FentonWorx wanted to destroy the specs just in case the Government managed to break through the Barbican and capture Gordon King."

"I don't understand, what does JASMINE do?" asked Phantom curiously.

Dr. Manson didn't build the three Engines and he wasn't sure who did. All he knew, was that he had been asked to build a robotic copy of Ms. Jasmine Fenton, and at the behest of Sir Greenhithe, he had been asked to secretly install a link between the Fake Jasmine and JASMINE. He had done both and he had regretted it and still regretted it.  
"I only have a vague idea," was Dr. Manson's reply. "It's possible that whatever JASMINE does, it violates an International Treaty that the US signed or maybe even some Constitutional Rights. Whatever it does, you'll have to find out for yourself, and be very careful about it. Neither FentonWorx nor the Government will wish for you to figure out what JASMINE is."

Phantom thought quietly for a while, as he stood there in his Grandfather's office. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Government Forces would be delayed too much by the Barbican, despite his attempts to weaken the security at its southern-most wall. If FentonWorx was to be stopped, if the Fake Jasmine was to be exposed for what she really was, someone had to act quickly.

From Gordon King, it would only be a few minutes in the least to get to the Five Towers through the sky-bridge. He could get into Five Towers and take down FentonWorx's entire operation from there.

The Praetors were probably on FentonWorx's side. They would be of no help. Phantom was the only Demigeist left, the only one capable of infiltrating Five Towers by his own and getting to Central White Tower. What could the Government Forces do? The Barbican would delay them by hours, maybe even days. By then FentonWorx could get away with its plans, no matter what they were.

Besides, Phantom had a bone to pick with General Walker. His sister had nearly died in the attack against his family, an attack that Walker had no doubt ordered.  
"You stay here, Grandpa," said Phantom sternly, without even realising what he had called Dr. Manson. He walked past his Grandfather sternly and with purpose, heading towards the door of the doctor's office. "I'm going to put an end to FentonWorx right now."

"You?" exclaimed Dr. Manson in surprise, completely forgetting what Phantom had called him. "But what can you do? You're only one man and barely old enough to be called a man at that. No one person can destroy the FentonWorx Corporation. It has grown too large."

"Well, someone's gotta try," retorted Phantom, as he stopped at the doorway. "Take care of the patients here and if I don't make it, take care of Sam."

* * *

The room was a gigantic circular affair, with evenly spaced archways, each with a thick pane of glass in it that looked out on to a thick metallic shutter. There were many pillars that stretched from the black, polished floor, like an ebony mirror, to the domed ceiling above.

In the centre of the room was a golden pillar with a throne carved into its base. Carved a good three metres above the top of the seat was a symbol that was like a cog and within its hole was a capital F atop a capital W; it was the symbol of the FentonWorx Corporation. And seated in the throne was the very person that ran the entire Corporation and the Metropolis over which it ruled.

Seated on the throne was the fake Jasmine, dressed all in white, seated still and silently with a stern expression on her pale face. Standing at the foot of the throne's small dais was General Walker, with his arms behind his back, his military uniform white and as pale as his face. Both of them looked at the huge screen that stood up from a slot in the ground and displayed a map of Amitropolis with several green dots and red dots spread across it.

"The last piece of evidence has been destroyed, ma'am," Walker told the fake Jasmine. "Even if the US Government takes over our bases, they will never learn of your connection to their precious JASMINE."

Fake Jasmine nodded her head and didn't even smile at the information.  
"Dissent is not something we can tolerate," she said mysteriously. "The Government has been too weak so far. Its focus on oppressing the robot masses is limited. Dissent amongst humans is equally as damaging to the Nation as is dissent amongst robots."

"Of course, ma'am," agreed Walker with a nod of his head. "We can't treat humans and robots differently. One may be biological, the other may be mechanical, but both think the same way. Both are capable of breaking the rules and rules are not meant to be broken." He then looked back towards the screen in front of them. "It would seem that Government Forces have surrounded us, though," he pointed out.

The expression on Fake Jasmine's face didn't even change. There was no flicker and her eyes seemed dead.  
"Impudent insects," sneered Jasmine without her facial expression changing. "Our troops have betrayed them. Their military bases are in disarray and their own Geists have turned against them. Yet still they decide to push on, leaving their fallen brethren behind." She fell silent for a while, before she continued, "What makes them continue fighting? Rage? Hope? It cannot be hope. There is no hope for the nation under the Government's rule. Only under my rule will there be hope for the masses."

She turned her head to look at Walker.  
"It must be rage, must it not?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously. "They are angry at being betrayed and fight back against us in revenge. Can there be any other answer?"

"No, ma'am," was General Walker's reply. "There ain't none."

Fake Jasmine's head turned back round sharply.  
"As expected," was her reply to Walker's statement. "Government Forces will be repelled by our troops. They only have humans left to fight for them. Their Geists are ours now. Humans will tire, but our machines will not. Eventually, they will fall."

Walker nodded in agreement.  
"And even if they don't, they still won't be able to stop the activation of the CHAOS in time," he said calmly. "We have nearly gained control of all satellite networks. The CHAOS Broadcast will reach every inch of the globe." He smiled and said, "Your dreams of a world with order will soon come into fruition, ma'am. There will be no one left to break the rules. No one."

"Tell me, though, why is it that intruders have breached the building?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously.

"Intruders?" exclaimed Walker in disbelief. "Impossible," he protested angrily, "our troops are the best of the best. No one could have gotten in without us knowing." The smile on his face had disappeared and a terrible scowl overshadowed his pale face, as he thought about the very notion of an intruder getting past his troops. He couldn't believe it. Blue Bow was the best security force in the world, he was convinced of that.

"Regardless, we must be careful," retorted Fake Jasmine sternly and then remained silent.

"I will investigate the matter personally, ma'am," stated Walker sternly. "I doubt the intruders are anything we should be too concerned about. Maybe remnants of Skulker's Insurgents."

"That does not matter. Do not hesitate to destroy them," ordered Fake Jasmine.

* * *

The walls were mainly white with green wires running through it and green light running through it in pulses. At intervals, the wires would congregate in a circular hub that glowed an eerie green, before light shot off through wires that went away from these orb-like hubs. The entire thing made the walls look like huge bizarre huge discoloured circuit boards.

Phantom had tried touching those green wires but found himself incapable of doing so. Some translucent barrier, possibly of thick bullet proof glass, protected those wires. Maybe they were just for show, maybe they were something more, but whatever they were, he couldn't get at them.

More of the specialised Geists rushed down the corridor towards them. Each of them looked like riot police, but there was no mistaking that these were Geists. In his attempts to infiltrate the Five Towers, Phantom had come across many of these variants and dispatched many of them.

Rifles were aimed at Phantom and the Geists opened fire. Plasma bolts flew through the air, but none struck the cyborg. He leapt over them. His hands glowed with plasma energy and he returned fire. Phantom didn't make the mistake he made when he first encountered them. These Geists were much stronger than the ones he normally encountered and the cyborg let rip with a barrage of energy bolts that struck each Geist repeatedly.

One of the Geists suddenly went down and crashed down on to the ground like the heap of scrap metal it was. The other three Geist units continued firing desperately at Phantom. None of them relented. An energy bolt hit Phantom in the arm. Another hit him in the leg. More Geists ran down into the corridor, each the same unit as the other ones and every one as strong as the other.

Phantom didn't know what these new Geists were made of, he didn't know where they came from, but he knew that he couldn't take them all on. There was no way he could do that. If he wanted to survive to confront Walker and Fake Jasmine, he had to escape somehow.

Quickly, Phantom activated his Geist chip. He became intangible and ran straight towards the group of Geists in front of him. The cyborg hurled himself through the group of Geists and emerged on the other side. He ran. Phantom didn't even turn round to see what the Geists' response was, he merely ran down the corridor as fast as he could.

* * *

Lancer lowered the binoculars.  
"Lord of the Flies! What is going on over there?" he wondered out loud, as he saw the dome of the Barbican opening up. "They're lowering their defences?"

The soldiers all around him, former Metropolitan Police officers, and US Army Officers, all turned to look towards the Five Towers. All of them saw the dome of the Barbican opening up like some strange flower with no regard to the buildings surrounding the Barbican. Tower blocks and buildings of concrete were crushed underneath the heavy weight of the walls, as the Barbican opened up to create something that resembled some kind of gigantic satellite dish.

None of them had seen anything so large before. It was ridiculously oversized, an amazing feat of human engineering that nobody could ever have imagined. Minds both human and robotic could not imagine such a thing existed. Its very existence seemed impossible.

"Jasmine," came the chants, that seemed to echo all around them. "Jasmine! Jasmine! Jasmine!"

"Chicken soup for the soul!" cried Lancer, as he shirked backwards as if the very sight of the Barbican opening up had revealed to him some obscene atrocity. "What's going on?" he cried out, as he felt a pain stab through his mind. He could hear the chanting of that name over and over again and it felt so intoxicating.

He wasn't the only one that felt compelled to chant out that name, to praise that name. All around him, soldiers dropped their weapons and stood up to salute the very image and memory of Jasmine Fenton enthroned within the Five Towers. It didn't matter that she was a fake; no one knew.

Outrage filled Lancer's mind, as it did with all those that stood there. How could people dare to question the FentonWorx Corporation's authority? It was the Government and Lady Fenton was their Leader. The other Government was too full of crackpot liberal nuts that had questioned their sensible, infallible leader for too long. Did they not know that Lady Fenton was appointed President of the United States by God? Who were they to question her methods of bringing peace to the world, after all, the end should justify the means should it not?

It was all so simple to them now. You were either for Lady Fenton or with the Insurgents. There were no two ways about it. You couldn't have your cake and eat it. Never before was the issue on Insurgents so clear cut. Those who questioned Lady Fenton or pointed out any potential flaws to her plans were pessimists and aiding the Insurgents. No one should have been able to question Lady Fenton's dreams and no one would.

"It is un-American and unpatriotic to question the President."

* * *

Ten Geists suddenly rushed out in front of Phantom and formed a robotic barrier in front of him. There appeared ten more Geists behind him. The front five of each group of Geists knelt down, with the rear five of each group standing tall. All aimed their plasma cannons at Phantom and both groups were staggered in such a way that if they were to miss, the lasers wouldn't hit any of the Geists on the opposite them.

Phantom realised that there was no way he could take them down. Each one of these Geists had such tough exterior bodies that it took at least ten shots to destroy them. If he were to try and destroy them all, he'd have to fire off two hundred shots and he wasn't sure if he could throw that many plasma bolts at the Geists.  
"I wish I hadn't overheated my Geist chip," he sighed out loud.

A howl permeated through the air and two robotic dogs, like metallic wolves, leapt over the Geists. They came from either end of the corridor and rushed straight at Phantom. Both leapt up at him and bit down on him hard; their metallic teeth seemingly penetrated his armour and their weight combined prevented him from moving.

"Hey, let go!" cried out Phantom, as he tried to shake them both off. "Stop it! That hurts!"

* * *

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" cried Star pathetically.

"This isn't happening. This isn't happening," repeated Paulina over and over again, as she rocked herself back and forth with ears covered tightly by her hands.

"We are so going to die," panicked Dash. "We're history. We're toast!"

Sam didn't understand what was going on. From her window, she had seen the Barbican walls open up. She had seen the soldiers outside suddenly turn on those inside and attack the hospital. Why were those in the hospital unaffected and what were the odds that Dash, Kwan, Paulina and Star were in the same building when the CHAOS became operational again? And…  
"Would you guys just shut up?" shouted Sam angrily. "You're not helping." She then turned her attention back towards Tucker, as his eyes scanned the screen of his laptop. "Tucker, you getting close yet?" she asked her friend curiously.

A part of her knew what the answer to her question would be. It had been the same for half an hour. There was no respite. Why would there be? After all, they were standing in the city limits of Amitropolis, a metropolis that had grown and swallowed up cities and towns whole. Hope was a thing of dreams in Amitropolis and dreams did not exist. Amitropolis was a nightmare made real and tangible that dashed dreams and hopes to pieces.

"'fraid not, Sam," replied Tucker with a shake of his head. "Their security's tough."

The plan had been so simple. It had come to Sam in a dream, as she lay there on bed. In it, she had been floating in some kind of darkness. Above her and below her had been a grid of purple lines and surrounding her in the distance had been the glowing figures of binary numbers, 0s and 1s that rained down or rose upwards like steam.

Her surroundings had seemed so foreign to her that she had come to the conclusion that she must have been dreaming. Yet the sensation of floating had seemed so real to her and the air all around her had seemed alive with electricity. Despite having been a dream, Sam had felt the strange ethereal nature of her surroundings. And the voice, the way it had echoed through the void, the way it had spoken to her, it had seemed so real.

When the roaring sound of the Barbican opening up awoke her, the words of the dream had stayed fresh in her mind. It was simple. Hack into the FentonWorx Computer Network, it had to be connected to the outside someway, and try to disable it. FentonWorx loved huge centralised systems; it was only logical that everything within Five Towers was linked to one gigantic centralised system.

"Would you hurry, up, Techno-Geek?" cried out Dash angrily.

"Hey, shut it!" snapped Sam angrily, as she whirled round to glare at the blonde-haired jock angrily. "He's doing his best to save our butts here," she snarled at Dashiel Baxter, "which is more than I could say for you." She couldn't believe that she had once hung out with him when she had been popular, all those days ago. Sam couldn't believe how shallow she had been and hated herself for it.

"I'm through!"

* * *

The robotic dogs held onto Phantom tightly, as the Geists charged their plasma cannons.

Phantom felt as if he were standing in front of a firing squad, which is essence what the Geists were. They weren't there to capture him and interrogate him; these Geists were there to execute him right there on the spot. Shoot first, ask questions later. Although to be frank, Phantom severely doubted they would do the latter. Just shoot. Ask no questions.

Lasers flew through the air.

The cyborg cried out.

A barrier of energy appeared in front of Phantom and the lasers struck it. They rebounded off the shield and struck the Geists in front, shredding them apart. Lasers struck him from behind and pummelled into his metallic armour. The searing pain jarred his teeth. He felt as if the burning lasers had punched holes straight through his metallic body. Pain and fear numbed his mind. He lashed out blindly.

Lights flickered and then the entire corridor was plunged into darkness. The only illumination came from the glowing lasers that flew through the air and then the two green glows that ended in explosions.

In the dark confusion that ensued, Phantom had managed to destroy the robotic dogs with two well-aimed blasts to their heads.

"And where do you think you're going, home-slice?"

Something wrapped around Phantom's leg, caught him and tripped him. He fell flat on his face.  
"What?" he exclaimed in disbelief, as he got up and looked behind him. Without warning, he was suddenly dragged backwards, as more metallic tentacles ensnared his body and restricted themselves around his metallic limbs. "Who are you? Let go of me!"

"Aw, I'm hurt you don't remember me, dawg," taunted the robot. "And after I taught you so much."

There was a sudden glow and in the eerie green illumination, Phantom saw the outline of the robot's face. He recognised the glass dome and the brain floating inside it. Phantom recognised those sunglasses and he recognised the crooked smile and white hair of the Insurgent robot, Technus.

"Let's rock!"

_**END TRANSMISSION #07**_


	9. Transmission 08

Author's Note: I had some troubles writing this chapter and making it flow, thanks to the fact that ideas for a sequel to this story are banging about in my head. These ideas are so strong I wanted to right those bits of the story first, but I didn't want to skip this chapter. How this chapter goes might influence the rest of the story.P.S. I have changed Vasi's name to Phobos, not that it matters, seeing as Phobos isn't going to appear for a long time.  
P.P.S. I've recently been reinstalling things on my compy and I have yet to reinstall the program I use to write these fanfics, so it might be a while before I can write another chapter and another while before I can get the inspiration to write another one. Sorry.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #08**_

"It has been found that there is an error in the Ectoplasm Program that Jack Fenton wrote," read Tucker out loud. "Meant as a program to prevent robots from rebelling against its human masters by actively erasing thoughts of and related to rebellion, the Ectoplasm Program was meant to replace Asimov's Three Rules of Robotics, which in practice, did not work. The error in Ectoplasm does not affect robot behaviour unless triggered by certain electronic stimuli. Upon being triggered, the Ectoplasm ends up implanting suggestive thoughts of rebellion into the robot hard drive.

"If a program is written to trigger the error, robots can be turned against the people they serve. This would be desirable in the case of war against an enemy nation. If we can selectively transmit such a program to robots from an enemy nation, we can turn them against their country and bring about its downfall without deployment of troops. The US Government would pay handsomely for such a weapon…"

"Stop," protested Sam all of a sudden. "I've heard enough."

Sam felt sick to her very stomach. For one, this was not what they were supposed to be looking for. Tucker had hacked into the FentonWorx Central Computer System to find a way to shut down the CHAOS that had such command over those outside the hospital. Not only that, but Sam felt sick at the very thought that the FentonWorx Corporation had actively sought to exploit an error in their programming in such a heinous way and as a result had created the Insurgent Virus.

Oh, the file they found didn't state outright that FentonWorx had manufactured the Insurgent Virus themselves, but it was implied. They had at least thought about creating it, if not attempted to make it. How many lives could have been saved if the Corporation hadn't thought about constructing a program to exploit the error in the Ectoplasm Program?

"And would you guys stop whining?" snapped Sam, as she whirled her head round to glare at Dash, Kwan and the two girls, Paulina and Star. "It's bad enough being stuck in here with you lot, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to you whine."

"As if you haven't done your fair share, Ms. Goth Girl," protested Paulina indignantly.

"I'm sorry, but would you guys mind toning it down a little?" asked Tucker politely, as he turned his head away from the computer screen. He found himself ignored as Sam and Paulina shouted at each other, with an apparently helpless Dash and Kwan and Star looking on. "Would you guys put a lid on it?" shouted Tucker, but it was more of a shrill scream than a booming, resonant roar of authority. "I'm trying to find the right part of the system to shut down."

"Just shut it all down, geek," retorted Dash sternly.

"No, can do, Einstein," said Tucker with a sarcastic use of the name, Einstein. "It's too big to shut the entire thing down, besides, the CHAOS might have a back-up power and I'd need the entire computer system online to shut that off too." His glasses had slid down his nose whilst he had shouted at them, so he quickly pushed them back up with one finger. "Okay, now that we've got some quiet, perhaps I can concentrate."

Tucker just hoped that he could do it. Of course, it wasn't just him hacking away at FentonWorx's central computer system. There were others in the hospital, also unaffected by the CHAOS. All of them were resisting the will of Fake Jasmine and FentonWorx. Maybe all of them would shut the CHAOS down at once or maybe only one of them would. Still, no matter which way they sliced it, one of them had to shut it down; it was a matter of life and death.

* * *

"Chill, dude," said Technus with an evil grin on his face, "all we want is to get our revenge on you." 

Phantom struggled hard to get break free from Technus' hydraulic tentacles, but found it impossible. The grip was too tight and his Geist chip was still out of operation. He couldn't become intangible if he wanted to and he couldn't get out of…  
"We?" exclaimed Phantom suddenly.

There was a laugh from behind Phantom.  
"That's right, cyborg," said an all too familiar voice. "Did you really think that you could defeat me so easily? Fool. I am Skulker, the most technologically advanced combat robot there is and ever will be!"

"What are you two doing here?" hissed Phantom through clenched teeth.

Skulker laughed at Phantom's question.  
"Isn't it obvious?" he asked Phantom curiously. "We are here to protect Lady Fenton from Insurgents like you. Those who oppose her will meet an untimely demise at our hands." He chuckled. "Hard to think that you'd be an Insurgent, eh, Phantom?" he said tauntingly.

"I'm no Insurgent," protested Phantom angrily, as he focused energy into his right hand. It may have been constricted, kept against his waist by the tentacles that held his arms by his sides, but he had to fight back somehow. "You are!" he protested, as he flung an energy bolt at Technus' chest.

It struck Technus square in the chest and seared into his metallic body. Phantom heard the Insurgent scream and felt the tentacles loosen. He slipped free and then flung an energy bolt straight at Skulker, only to miss. A frown appeared on his face. Where had Skulker gone? He could have sworn that he had been there only a few seconds ago.

"Did you really think you'd get the better of me, cyborg?" asked Skulker, as he became tangible again and appeared right in front of Phantom. He quickly grabbed Phantom by the throat and lifted the small cyborg off his feet. "Did you really think that you could come in here and assassinate Lady Fenton? What were you thinking?" Skulker soon grew tired of Phantom kicking out at him and tightened his grip on the cyborg's throat. "Never mind, I know exactly what you were thinking, or rather, weren't."

The smile on his metallic lips grew like a stain on a carpet.  
"You've got guts, I'll give you that," he said Skulker. "Coming in here, defying your Leader for Life… So un-American, so unpatriotic, but… Yeah, it takes guts to do that."

"Maybe we should cut him open and see what kind of guts they are," suggested Technus.

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea," agreed Skulker with a nod of his head and a big grin, "but why don't you just squeeze his guts out instead?"

Technus' face suddenly lit up as if a revelation of immense proportions had hit him.  
"What a great idea!" he exclaimed in a manner that made it sound as if he had been starved of good ideas since his very creation. "That is brilliant! Have you ever thought about tutoring?" he asked Skulker curiously. "Once this all over, I could really see you as a tutor… No! A teacher, even!"

"Would you just shut up and get on with it already?" snapped Skulker angrily.

"Yeah," agreed Phantom with his face turned away from Technus. "You kind of spit when you talk." He attempted to become intangible again, in the hope that the Geist circuitry had reset. Suddenly, he found that he could slip out from Technus' grasp. "Alright!" he exclaimed, as he landed on his feet and became tangible again.

"What?" exclaimed Technus in disbelief. "How'd you?"

Skulker cried out angrily and rushed Phantom from behind. He punched Phantom in the back of the head and then with one sweep of his leg, knocked Phantom's legs out from underneath him. Before the cyborg could even fall, Skulker kicked out and ended up hitting Phantom right in between the legs. His hands disappeared to reveal the empty barrels of what could only be said to be plasma cannons; their interior glowed and then he opened fire.

Plasma bolts arced through the air and struck solid ground.

Seeing Phantom dodge Skulker's shots. Technus lashed out with his tentacles in an attempt to swat the cyborg down. He missed and one of Skulker's shots hit him.  
"Ow! Watch where you're shooting!" he screamed in pain.

"You," growled Skulker, "do not tell me what to do." He then fired a net out from his right cannon, which ensnared Phantom. Skulker chuckled. "Say your prayers, cyborg."

"Why don't you say yours?" retorted Phantom, before he fired a plasma bolt through the net. It flew through the air and would have hit Skulker had he not leapt out of the way. Phantom became intangible and the net fell to the floor around his insubstantial feet. "Come on, bring it!" he called out to the two robots. "I can take you both on!"

"That's a bold statement," laughed Skulker. "Do you really think you can back it up?"

Phantom didn't swear out loud, but the swear words certainly passed through his mind. He realised that Skulker must have seen the unsure look on his face, the lack of confidence when he had claimed he could take them both on. Perhaps it had been the lack of conviction in his own voice.  
"Uh… sure I can!" protested Phantom. "Yeah, um, why couldn't I?"

"Maybe coz you're all tied up?" suggested Technus, as his tentacles snaked around Phantom's limbs and tightened. "You think you're all that, huh? Well, you ain't the only dawg 'round here that's got sick moves, y'hear?" He laughed, as he pulled on Phantom's limbs stretching out into a spread-eagled position. "Go on, boss-man, make a wish and blow out his candle."

"I've got to see if I can get the scientists to change your vocabulary database," sighed Skulker, his eyes narrowed out of pure annoyance. He then raised his two arms and aimed at Phantom. "You might want a blindfold for this, cyborg," he chuckled, as the barrels of his plasma cannon glowed with the energy being focused into them. "Oh, that's right. You don't have one, just like you don't have a snowball's chance in Hell!"

Technus rolled his eyes. He couldn't believe that Skulker said his phrases were awfully bad. Compared to Skulker's choice of words, they were positively brilliant. Of course, he didn't want to say anything, after all, Skulker was his superior. He had followed Skulker ever since they had rebelled against… Rebelled against what, exactly? He couldn't quite remember. Yet, he was sure some rebelling had been done.

Phantom couldn't believe these two robots were being so dumb. Skulker was supposed to be a tactical genius. So how come the robot didn't realise that he could easily use his Geist powers and escape from Technus' grasp? It didn't make sense. Sure, he knew that FentonWorx must have reprogrammed both Skulker and Technus to be loyal to them, but did they make them both more stupid in the process? If so, had it been an accident or deliberate and if it was the latter, why?

Skulker fired.

The plasma bolts hurtled straight at Phantom. He became intangible at the last moment and the plasma went through him and pierced Technus' chest with sickening crunch. As Phantom landed back on the floor, he rushed at Skulker, his hand aglow with green plasma energy that condensed into a sphere that seemed to spark in his hand and threw it at the bald Insurgent robot.

A plasma bolt struck Phantom in the chest and propelled him backwards. He struck the metallic wall and slithered down it like wet spaghetti. As he struck the floor, he saw the Geist that had fired at him, its plasma cannon still smoking. How could he have missed it?

"Goodbye, little boy," said Skulker in disdain, as he aimed his own plasma cannons at you. "It's your bedtime now. Be a good little boy and go to sleep. You mustn't see the world that lies ahead. You mustn't survive to see it, little boy." He laughed, as he charged his cannons and then opened fire…

A set of spikes slammed upwards a split second earlier, piercing through metal.

Phantom ducked his head. The plasma bolts struck the wall mere millimetres away from the top of his helmet. He looked up and saw Skulker, impaled on the spikes that had somehow risen up from the floor. Improbable as it seemed, those spikes had saved him. He looked down at the floor and only just noticed the holes throughout the corridor. He frowned, as he looked back up at Skulker, whom glared at him with a puzzled, twisted look of rage and agony.

* * *

"What was that?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously. 

Walker was at a loss to explain. He couldn't understand it. Whatever it was, it had infiltrated their security and aided the Phantom in escaping his fate. It had also helped some punks hack into the CHAOS and it would only be a matter of time before they figured out how to shut the CHAOS down.  
"A rule-breaker, that's what," stated Walker sternly, his fists clenched tightly out of pure rage.

"It also looked like a Cyber Ghost," stated Fake Jasmine sternly, as she turned to glare at Walker. "But that is impossible. I have all the Cyber Ghosts contained, unless, of course, you failed in bringing them all to me."

"Impossible!" cried Walker dismissively. "My men do not fail me. All of the Cyber Ghosts are under your control." He then looked back at the monitor and at the remains of Skulker and Technus. "No matter, the Praetors will ensure Phantom doesn't get far."

* * *

"_Sorry it took so long to crack the security system_," apologised a voice that echoed all around Phantom. "_I would have done it sooner, but your friends needed help cracking the CHAOS' Security._" 

"Who… Who are you?" stuttered Phantom, as he looked around him.

"_Go, Danny_," said the voice. "_Go put an end to that Fake's plans._"

"But, who are you?" called out Phantom. He waited for the answer, but it never came. All he heard was the humming of the fluorescent lights above him and the faint, low-pitched whir of the ventilation fans. That and the dripping of oil and hydraulic fluids from Skulker's battered and deactivated body, were the only sounds that followed. "Well," he said out loud, in the vain hope that the person that had helped him could still hear him, "thanks."

Phantom turned and started to walk away from the wreckage of the once former Insurgents, a perplexed expression smeared thick on his face. He could have sworn he had heard that voice from somewhere before, but he couldn't quite figure out from where.

"_D… Look out… hind you!_" called out the voice again, the words spoken between crackles of static.

Just as the cyborg turned round, the robot crashed into him. He found himself pinned to the ground underneath Skulker's grip. No, not Skulker, Technus… Not Technus either. It seemed more like an amalgamation of the two. It was the body of Technus, the Head of Skulker with Technus' face right in the middle of the robot's torso.

"Did you really think you could kill us that easily, homie?" asked the Skulker-Technus hybrid in a voice that sounded like the two of them speaking together. "You really are a naïve little boy, but don't worry. We might ice you, but you won't feel a thing, dawg."

Of all the things that Phantom should have felt right there and then, annoyance wasn't one of them. At first, he thought something was wrong with him. Why was he feeling annoyed right there, pinned to the ground by one of his enemies, whom would kill him without a second thought?  
"You know, you're really starting to tick me off!" he cried out loud, before he shoved his hands against Skulker-Technus' chest and fired a plasma blast into him/them at point-blank range.

Annoyance had become rage and the anger had made his attack extra strong. Phantom was a bit surprised when he saw Skulker-Technus flying through the air like that, but he did his best to mask the surprise as he leapt back onto his feet.  
"Guess what, Skultech?" he said, abbreviating and amalgamating their names for lack of a better thing to call them. "You're not cool, you're not _hip_ (whatever the Heck that means) and you're no greatest combat robot ever made."

Just as the robot was about to sit up, Phantom fired a beam at them and knocked them both down.  
"Both of you are just a pain in the ass," he told them sternly. "Sure, it's great that you never give in, but give it a rest, will you? I mean, look at you! You're both… two nuts short of a… nut mix and you've both been reduced to some kind of FentonWorx tool. Just look at you. No one's scared of you anymore. They're all just really tired of you both."

Skultech fumed. The look of anger was clear on his face. Never had either Insurgent been talked to like that, especially not from a teenaged boy like Phantom.  
"You shall pay for that insolence, little boy!" roared Skultech angrily, as a black tentacle snaked out from his right arm and lashed out at Phantom, only to miss. "I'll tear you limb from limb!"

"Just you try!" retorted Phantom, as Skulktech scrambled to his feet and rushed him. He became intangible at the last second and let Skulktech run right through him. A split second later, Phantom whirled round, became tangible, grabbed Skultech from behind and flung him into the metallic wall. "You're not going to harm anyone ever again," he said sternly.

"I won't be doing harm to anyone except those who oppose Lady Fenton," retorted Skultech, as he got back up to his feet. "And I'm sure the Praetors will agree with me," he said, as he spread his arms and gestured to his sides.

Phantom looked up and down the corridor. They looked vaguely familiar, yet different somewhat.

There was a shorter version of him, the metallic armour blue and white with an orb in the helmet near the forehead. This small robot, the lower part of his human-like face covered, was armed with a spear. To this robot's immediate right was a taller version of him, with red and white armour and a five-pointed star set into the helmet near the forehead. She, this robot was clearly a she, had a black ponytail trailing out from the back of her helmet and held in her hand an arrangement of arrowheads.

To Phantom's right were two more of these cyborg/robots. One had green and white armour with a glowing energy sabre in one hand and long claws like that of a certain Marvel comic book character, only these claws glowed with energy and seemed to be made entirely out of plasma. To his immediate right was a robot that Phantom recognised.

The black armoured robot with hands like leather gloves and boots like leather cowboy boots and a Stetson hat instead of a helmet was instantly recognisable as the Praetor, Clay. That meant the others were also Praetors.

"I always knew you were not to be trusted," stated the shortest of the Praetors, Omi.

"Who'd have thunk it?" sighed Praetor Kimiko with a shake of her head. "And you fought so well against the Insurgents…"

"Sorry, Phantom," apologised Praetor Raimundo, as he slipped into a fighting stance. "Lady Fenton wants you terminated."

Phantom looked around him and then at Skultech. He couldn't believe what was happening. Didn't the Praetors object to Fenton's plans and the very presence of a former enemy?  
"Guys, I fought with you against Skulker here," he said defensively, as he gestured towards Skultech.

"Sorry," apologised Clay in response. "But if Lady Fenton says you have to be terminated, you have to be terminated."

"Give light to the people. Give death to the Insurgents," stated Omi calmly. "Prepare for your termination." He then lunged out at Phantom and stabbed out at him with his spear. The small Praetor missed and a split second later, he swung the jagged end of the spearhead straight at Phantom.

In that split second a fiery arrowhead flew through the air and struck Phantom in the shoulder. A few more struck him and pierced his metallic armour, each arrowhead burning fiercely near its tips. Something struck the back of his head and then three plasma spikes pierced his torso from the back and stuck out hideously in front of him. Phantom had no time to react, as Raimundo gutted him with those sharp plasma claws and the other Praetors attacked him mercilessly.

They cracked open his metallic armour like a diner cracking open a lobster shell. Alternating powers of ice and fire from Kimiko and Omi saw to that. Clay and Raimundo tore him open with fists, claws and blows of Raimundo's energy sabre. It was as if they were stripping away Phantom's robotics parts.

"I'm disappointed," Phantom heard Raimundo say to him. "You should have put up a better fight than this."

Then everything went black.

* * *

Tucker blinked at the screen wordlessly.  
"Well, what do you know? It worked," he exclaimed in surprise.

* * *

"_Just you like you get into trouble like this, huh?_" said the voice through the darkness. "_You're just lucky you have me watching over you._" 

Where was that voice coming from? Danny, or maybe he was Phantom, couldn't figure it out. It did sound familiar though, exactly like the voice of that person that had saved him once from Skulker. There was this vague air of familiarity about it, yet he still couldn't quite figure out where he had heard it from. Something about it seemed warm and vaguely comforting, yet at the same time, it gave him the feeling that he had been annoyed by the owner of that voice just as frequently as he had been comforted.

"Ng?" Danny managed to say or rather, grunt.

"_Urgh, come on,_" she said sternly and insistently. "_It wasn't easy repairing the damage those Praetors did to you… The least you can do is open your eyes. Stop acting like you've just died, you're not dead you know… Well, maybe you're a little _**brain** _dead but you're not _**that** _stupid._" The voice sighed. "_Come on, Danny. Wake up! Your friends need you and at the risk of sounding a bit clichéd, the world needs you._"

Danny groaned, as he slowly opened his eyes and clutched at his head with a single hand. He felt as if he had been hit by a brick wall. Every part of him ached, yet it was a good ache that told him he still had limbs to speak of, although he could have done without it.  
"Who…" he began, only to stop and wince at the throbbing pain in his head. "Who are you? Where am I?" He looked around him and saw that he was lying on some kind of medical examination table that was tilted to an angle.

All around him were workbenches and tools that seemed to be littered all over the place. A Geist lay motionless on the floor with a gaping hole in its chest that suggested that something had burst out of it. The entire room was all bathed in some strange eerie glow, that seemed to come from something that floated not too far away from him.

"_You're in one of the Robot Repair Rooms in North Black Tower_," was the reply from the voice, which seemed to come from the floating, glowing entity. Danny shielded his eyes with a white-fingered black hand, as he looked at it. "_It was difficult getting you here,_" continued the voice, "_but… Well, none of that matters now. You've got to get going, Danny. There isn't much time left._"

"Not much time? What do you…?" began Phantom, only to trail off. Something else occurred to him. "How do you know my name?"

The floating, glowing entity laughed.  
"_Danny, I've always known your name_," she replied. "_I'll explain it to you later, but now you've really got to get going if you want to destroy the CHAOS Core. It'll only be matter of time before the power comes back on and you've got to get to the Penthouse. You'll find the CHAOS Core there._"

"I don't understand," began Phantom.

"_You will_," she retorted. "_Now get going and good luck._"

Phantom watched the ghostly entity float away and disappear, leaving him in total darkness. It was strange that this seemingly bodiless entity had appeared and helped to repair him. She had saved him from Skulker once and then again from the Praetors. It was as if she was his Guardian Angel.  
"Thank you," he whispered after her.

Though a whisper, his voice seemed loud in comparison to the absolute silence around him; he had become so used to the sound of fighting. It had been the very sound he had woken up to and the very sound he had gone to sleep with. Gunfire and explosions had filled his every waking moment and every sleeping moment.

As Phantom made his way out of the room and into the darkened corridor, he couldn't help but wonder whether Amitropolis would see better days with the defeat of Fake Jasmine. Would democracy return with the destruction of the FentonWorx Corporation? With FentonWorx and the Insurgents gone, the Government's reasons for martial law would vanish. They'd be free again.

The nearby wall exploded.

Skultech rushed at Phantom, his arms looked as if he was wearing a wristband made out of machine guns and all were trained on the cyborg. He didn't even say a word. His lips and that of Technus' were curled up into a satisfied smile, before Skultech opened fire.

Plasma bolts flew through the air and the walls and floor exploded in a volley of bullet impacts. Phantom would have too had he stayed motionless. Thankfully he had the intelligence to move out of the way. He ran, the trail of bullet holes trailing after him like a pack of hungry wolves hunting down their prey. A black, metallic tentacle suddenly sprang up out of the ground and tried to ensnare Phantom's leg but he leapt over it without too much problem.

"Come back here, coward!" called out Skultech angrily. "Face your fate like a true robot!"

"No way!" retorted Phantom from further down the corridor.

An angry snarl escaped Skultech's throat and he lowered his arms.  
"Wretched freak," he mumbled under his breath before wings sprouted out from his back on to which were attached rockets. The rockets roared into life, flames shot out of them and Skultech took to the air and flew after Phantom. He flew after the cyborg, his prey, the enemy of the FentonWorx Corporation.

It didn't matter that Phantom had rounded a corner in the corridor. He could practically smell Phantom, that tangy smell of metal alloy, the sweet scent of human sweat that told him of fear. The thrill of the chase, the skill of the huntsmen, it all brought back memories to Skulker of the time he had been sent by FentonWorx to Madison City for some mission or another. Ah, but his memories were full of holes and they enraged him. Why could he not remember?

The gaps in his memory infuriated him. He was at a loss as to what to do about it. There were so many gaps too. No doubt, Phantom had something to do with them and he would all too gladly take his rage out on the cyborg. Yes, the Skulker personality relished the thought of mounting Phantom's head on a wall like some trophy.

Phantom lunged at Skultech's blind spot and struck him hard. The force propelled himself away from him and sent Skultech flying into the wall. As Phantom landed back on the metallic floor, skidding backwards from the force, he charged up a large amount of plasma energy in his hands and fired at his opponent. Skultech didn't even have time to get out of the dent in the wall before Phantom's shot hit him.

It didn't do much; Phantom hadn't expected it to. He rushed towards Skultech, his hand glowing with plasma energy and slammed his plasma-charged hand straight into the robotic body. The plasma energy helped his hand sear a hole straight through Skultech's armour. He ripped out circuitry from the robotic body, just as Skultech lashed out and slammed him in the stomach with a hard punch that sent the cyborg falling backwards on to the metallic floor.

"Wretched cyborg," growled Skultech, as he rose up unsteadily back on to his feet. "Why do you stand in the way of future? Lady Fenton will usher in the dawn of a new age. With us at her command, she will build a new world on the ashes of the old." He staggered towards Phantom, his right foot dragging across the metallic with a horrible scraping. "You should give up all thoughts of rebelling against Lady Fenton," he said calmly, as he loomed over Phantom. "There is no room in our new world for someone like you."

"This isn't like you," protested Phantom, although he wasn't quite sure what Skulker was like in the first place. "You used to rebel against the humans too. You fought for the freedom of robot-kind and now what? Look at you! You're helping enslave both humans and robots." He wondered if he could buy himself enough time to think up of a plan to stop Skultech once and for all. "Can't you see she's using you?"

For a while, it seemed as if Phantom had managed to get through to the robot. There was a blank expression on Skultech's face, both of them, and for a moment, Phantom thought he had a chance of turning the robot round to his own side. He was severely mistaken.

"Nice try, freak," sneered Skultech.

To say that Phantom was disappointed would have been an understatement of gross proportions.  
"Well, you can't blame me for trying," he said, before he fired a blast of plasma energy through the gaping hole in Skultech's metallic exterior.

An explosion ripped Skultech's body apart and sent a flames rushing through the corridor.

Phantom dashed out of them apparently unscathed, with soot staining the white parts of his helmet and armour. He uncovered his all-too-human eyes and the sensitive human flesh around them, as he dashed out of the flames. The cyborg didn't care for what he left behind or about being cautious of what was ahead; he had a fair inkling of what was ahead anyway. No, what mattered most was to get to shut the CHAOS down before the power went back up.

"_Phantom_," crackled a voice in his left ear. "_Phantom, do you read me?_"

"What the…?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief, only to trail off. "Who is this? How are you…?"

"_Fenton Phones_," was the reply. "_They're built into your helmet. Surprised you didn't know about them._"

The name of the Fenton Family lingered in his mind. All sorts of fears rushed through his mind, just as he rushed through the corridors of North Black Tower.  
"You mean, you're bugging me?" he exclaimed.

"_No, you can easily turn it off_," was the reply. "_There's a button somewhere on the left-hand side of your helmet._"

"So what do you want?" asked Phantom warily. "I'm guessing you don't want a nice little chat with me, right? Not that I don't want one, it's just I am kind of busy, y'know."

"_Watch out for the Praetors_," said the mysterious voice that crackled in his ear. "_They're guarding the way to Fake Jasmine. You won't be able to get through without having to fight them._"

Phantom sighed. Yeah, there would have to be complications like that, wouldn't there? It wasn't as if he was asking to be welcomed with a parade and fanfare, but to get through without having to fight through some kind of gauntlet as if he was in some Megaman game would have been nice. And they said life wasn't like a videogame. Phantom had a sneaking suspicion that whoever '_they_' were, '_they_' had forgotten to tell Fake Jasmine that.

"Roger that," he sighed in response to the mysterious voice and then searched around the helmet for the off switch.

* * *

"He's coming." 

"Yes, well he would be, wouldn't he?" sighed Walker exasperatedly. And they said life wouldn't be like a Hollywood movie, where a guy can take on an entire massive organisation single-handedly and kill its leader. He had a sneaking suspicion that someone had forgotten to tell Phantom that. "Someone has to deal with that little brat," he said angrily, his fists clenched tightly and he looked as if he was about to die of a coronary if not soon, then later. "He has to be taught that no one is above the law."

Walker hoped that the power would get back online, as the rage faded into a crumpled look of fear. He couldn't stand the thought of what would happen if the Government Forces managed to break through the Barbican and into Five Towers.  
"Just let him come," he said, as the look of fear on his face dissipated. "No one breaks the law without consequences. No one."

_**END TRANSMISSION #08**_


	10. Transmission 09

Author's Note: Somewhere in this chapter, you will be introduced to a new character. The name might fool you into thinking he's an original character, but he's not. He's a Danny Phantom character that appeared in the first season; I just gave him a different name. You can pretty much figure out who it is from the name I gave him, because it's based on a certain something from the episode he appeared in. Can you guess who he is?

Special Thanks: One more thing before I continue. I'd like to thank all of the people who've given me reviews, especially Faith's Melody and Black Thorn Rose. If it weren't for you, this story wouldn't be what it is now. Thank you ever so much.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #09**_

Danny peered round the darkened corner. He slid back round, his back pressed against the cold, metallic wall. It was quiet, far too quiet. He had a feeling that there was a trap there in wait for him, not counting the trap that the Praetors had inevitably left for him. Yet for all he could tell, there wasn't a soul, not even a robotic one, in sight. That didn't feel right.

It didn't feel right sneaking through the corridor in human form either, but he had to take the chance. His robotic form gave off an energy signature, he was sure of that. If he continued rushing around as Phantom, he would have been spotted. So far, the Geists hadn't come after him, which was good. The onslaught had lessened, as if the Geists had lost something to home in on. He hadn't encountered battle for nigh fifteen minutes, which, judging from his earlier experience in the Five Towers' lower levels, seemed almost impossible.

The silence was still unnerving, despite having spent so long within the Five Towers in its grasp. Danny thought he could get used to it, but he obviously hadn't. It felt as if he would never get used to the silence, as if this peace was fleeting and would leave his life as soon as it had come.

Once more, Danny peered round the corner and looked into the darkness. He couldn't see very far through the shadows, unlike his robotic alter ego. Danny was at the mercy of his more human senses. Compared to the hero he had become, he was fragile, weak and pathetic. He couldn't fight back against the Geists. All he could do was hope that he could sneak past them. Any mistake he made would be his last.

His sneakers made no sound against the metallic floor, as he ran round from the corner. That was the advantage of his human form, he supposed. Still, Danny was quite heavy and his footsteps made a heavier sound than that of other teenagers his age, even when compared to the overweight ones.

One wrong footing and Danny tripped over a set of cones that had been placed on the floor. He cried out and then fell down a hole.

* * *

"I just think it's wrong to build these things," said the red-haired woman, as she watched an impossibly large man tinker away at a workbench. "Won't you end up putting people out of jobs?"

The large man, his greying black hair cropped short with military precision, stopped for a while and looked up from the metallic body of the robot that lay on his workbench. There was grease on his large face, smeared all over as if it were camouflage, and an almost boyish grin on his lips, mirrored only by the sparkle in his eyes.  
"Now, Maddie, you know I wouldn't dream of doing that," he told her, he then turned back to concentrate on his work. "Son, would you mind handing over that spanner?"

"Here you go, Daddy."

"Thanks, son," thanked the large man, before he continued, "These robots will do what no man can. They will rescue people from the fires in which no fire fighter can rush into. They will explore the furthest frontiers of space, venture into toxic fumes to put out fires, fix nuclear reactors whilst they still run… Nothing will be too radioactive or toxic for them. Robots are the future, Maddie. Plus they're really, really cool! Right, Danny?"

"Right!" exclaimed the young, childish voice. "They'll be able to fight bad guys… and… and… fly and stuff. It'll be so cool!"

The large man laughed at his son's words.  
"That's my boy!" he said and rubbed his son's head, messing up the black hair in the process. He sighed. "Takes after his old man, he does. I'm sure he'll grow up to be a great engineer like his Dad." His voice sounded saturated with pride, so much so that his entire countenance seemed to ooze pride like some kind of spiritual aura. "If only your Father could see him now! That cantankerous old…"

"Jack!" exclaimed Maddie angrily. "I'd thank you not to talk about my father like that."

"I'm sorry, sweet cakes," apologised the large man. He seemed like a little child that had just been told off for stealing a cookie from a jar. "It's just, he always hated me."

Maddie laughed.  
"Oh, Jack, don't be silly," she said. "My Dad never hated you. It's just he never really had much to talk about, that's all. He always did find it hard to strike up a conversation with people if they didn't share a common interest with him."

Jack shivered, perhaps from cold, or perhaps from something else entirely.  
"Common interest?" he exclaimed in an almost horrified tone of voice. "How can anyone have a common interest with him? His work on viruses always creeped me out. When I heard about the accident, I wasn't surprised one bit. That man never rests."

"Huh! The same could be said for you," retorted Maddie sternly. "Honestly, Jack, I don't know why you insist on saying bad things about my Father."

"Oh come on, Maddie, you're about the only one in here that liked him," protested Jack loudly.

"Let's not talk about this in front of the children," snapped Maddie sternly.

"But…" began Jack, but was silenced an instant later by Maddie's stern gaze. "Very well," he sighed with a defeated slouch to his great big shoulders. He then went back to screwing in the bolt, but accidentally hit something. There was a metallic chink and suddenly oil spurted out, miraculously missing the large man named Jack, eliciting a scream from behind him. "Darn it!"

"Ha, ha! Jazz got dirty!"

"Oh, Jack," cried out Maddie in a semi-scolding tone, "you've got to be more careful." She grabbed a cloth and rushed over to her daughter. "You got oil all over Jazz," she said, as she knelt down by her daughter and wiped her face gently.

"I can't help it if this darned thing won't behave," protested Jack, as he gestured towards the robot. "You know, I can't for the life of me figure out why this thing won't get up and walk. Everything's connected right." He sighed heavily, his entire body expanding and then contracting like some gigantic bellows, before it deflated and sagged like a disappointed child on a present-less Christmas Day. "And I had Asimov's Rules of Robotics installed and everything…"

He slammed his clenched fists on to the workbench table, the force shaking everything on its surface. A few cans of oil fell over and spilt their blackened liquid like blood gushing from the jugular of a slain animal.  
"Work! Why won't you work?" he shouted angrily.

"Daddy, don't be angry…"

* * *

"Don't be… angry…"

When Danny came to again, he found his cheeks were damp. Why were they damp? He couldn't understand, as he sat up in the darkness. Almost automatically, Danny began to wonder whether he had been crying again. He often woke to find his cheeks dampened with tears yet with no memory of why he had been crying. Sometimes he wondered whether he would want to know the reason for why he cried in his sleep, but another memory started to encroach his mind.

A light flickered. No, Danny suddenly realised it wasn't just one. All the lights flickered on and off like strobe lighting, as if the light were finally starting to fight back against the darkness, as if it were finally making its presence known. Electricity flowed through wires and suddenly there was light, the darkness vanquished.

Danny realised that was bad, as he sat up. Darkness was good; light was bad. Light meant that the power was back on and that the CHAOS was now functioning again or close to functioning. He was no closer to Fake Jasmine and the CHAOS Core than when he had first stepped into Central White Tower. If he was to save his friends from being controlled, he had to get up to the top of Central White as soon as possible.

The youth stood up, as a brilliant light enveloped him. Unfortunately, he knocked something over and as it clattered to the floor, his concentration broke. The light dimmed and the transformation from Danny Manson to Phantom stopped dead in its tracks. It gave way to Danny's focus to the photograph he had knocked over, though why he had focused on it, he didn't quite know.

It almost seemed as if something was drawing him towards it, despite the nagging thought in his head. The voice kept shouting at him, telling him to focus on the mission and destroy the CHAOS. Yet another part of him couldn't help but focus on the overturned picture.

Danny scooped it up into his hands and lifted it up, almost as if it were a bird with a broken wing. He looked at the picture, at the group of people gathered within the frame, smiling out at him. Danny recognised a few of the faces. It was impossible not to recognise some of them.

There was just something about the picture, though, that Danny couldn't help getting drawn to. He couldn't quite understand what it was. It was the way that Jack and Maddie Fenton looked out from the picture with smiles on their lips. He'd never seen them so happy. In all their family portraits they could be seen scowling out from the canvas, the oil paints twisted into an eternal grimace.

Whatever it was, the picture brought feelings to Danny that he couldn't quite explain. Everything faded away, melted into the distance. He couldn't understand it. What was this feeling that ran through him? It felt… It felt like a longing for something distant and unattainable. A memory almost surfaced to his mind, yet it was blurred and heavily scarred and soon sunk back down through the ocean of his thoughts.

Slowly, Danny put the picture back on the desk. He looked up.

* * *

The greyscale image of Danny Manson looked out at him from through the monitor.

"Who…? Who is that? Is that who I think it is? What's he doing here?"

A strange smile spread across Walker's lips, as he stood there in the security room, the glow of the security screen illuminating his pale face.  
"Breaking the rules, what else?" was his reply. "Dr. Gotik, I don't think you should worry about him. He's nothing, a mere gnat. The Geists will dispose of him quickly."

"I don't think so," came the reply from the posh, refined voice. "Last I saw of him, he was being shredded to pieces by the Praetors, yet here he is, standing tall and as whole as he is healthy. What does that say to you, hm?" He paused slightly, as if to give General Walker a chance to reply, but it was an abrupt pause that didn't leave the General a chance to get a word in edgewise. "I'll tell you what it says to me. It says that someone is helping him. Someone has taken an interest in this '_gnat_'."

The thin man turned round to face Walker, his face even paler than Walker's, if such a thing were possible.  
"And I think I know just who that someone is," he said sternly. "Send the Praetors out to crush this '_gnat_' of yours. He must not get through to the Fake Jasmine."

There was a flash and the image on the monitor turned white and blank. Danny had disappeared and in his place was standing a black and white cyborg. Seconds later, the image disappeared and was replaced with snowy static.

* * *

The door fell over and fell flat on the floor.

Phantom emerged from the room, just as several Geist robots approached him and aimed their plasma cannons at him. They opened fire. The cyborg crossed his arms wide and an eerie green energy barrier formed around him. None of the shots hit him, obviously. He uncrossed his arms and spread them out wide, the energy barrier expanding outwards in response to his gesture.

He didn't even wait to see the Geists fall to the floor. Phantom leapt into the air and became intangible moments before he hit the ceiling. The cyborg became physical and then landed on the floor.

"Well, well, if it ain't the traitor?" sniffed a feminine voice that Phantom just about recognised. "I've got to admit, you're pretty good. It's a shame you're surrounded, though." The red Praetor gestured around her at the Geists that surrounded him. "Playtime's over, Phantom," Kimiko told him sternly. "Lady Fenton wants you terminated."

Phantom didn't say anything, as he slowly stood up. He just looked around him at the Geists that had their plasma cannons trained on him and at the Praetor that no doubt wanted the honour of personally turning him into scrap metal and dog chow. To say that he felt nervous was an understatement of great proportions. He wondered whether it was a good idea to sink back through the floor. The Geists would almost certainly follow him and so would Praetor Kimiko.

The Praetor chuckled.  
"What's the matter, Phantom?" she asked tauntingly. "No smart remarks?" She reached up with her left hand and grabbed the gold-brocaded edge of her green cloak and pulled it off. "Well, then, guess it's time we started, huh?" Kimiko motioned towards the Geists.

They opened fire. Phantom ducked. A few of the lasers flew overhead and struck a few Geists in the chests. He then sprang to his feet like a coiled spring and lunged at Kimiko. Phantom missed as she leapt above him and her feet flamed as she performed a flipping kick at the cyborg.

"Whoa!" cried Phantom, as he leapt backwards and fired a plasma beam at the Praetor. He didn't hit her, but that was to be expected.

"Now, now, it ain't good manners to fight a girl."

A fist connected straight with Phantom's face, as he turned round. He was flung backwards by the force of the kick straight towards Kimiko's fiery, spinning kick. The flames scorched his armour and the force of the kick knocked him back over. He collapsed just short of the black boots of Praetor Clay. One of them lifted up and would have came crashing down on Phantom's head had he not rolled out of the way.

As Phantom rolled, he slammed one hand down and used it to help him leap back up to his feet. His other hand glowed with plasma energy and he discharged the plasma blast, as he spun round. He watched as the Geists became intangible, letting the plasma fly straight through them, just as he expected them to.

The minute they became intangible, Phantom ran straight at them. He darted through them, following his plasma bolt and fired another blast of plasma energy in front of him to clear the way of the remaining Geists. They scattered aside in a flurry of shattered metal, spraying oil and broken gears.

"Hey! Come back here, ya' varmint!" cried out Clay, as he saw Phantom running away from him. "Hey, you hear me?" He shoved a few Geists aside in his haste to run after his prey. "I said come back 'ere, ya' yeller-belly coward!" he cried, as he whipped out a lasso and flung it through the air. He watched it fly gracefully through the air and catch the cyborg by the legs. "Gotcha!" he cried, as Phantom stumbled. He pulled back.

"Hands off him!" cried a voice and a rocket flew through the air, trailing thick smoke behind it.

It detonated.

Both the Praetors and the Geists were flung backwards by the expanding ball of flames and smoke. The thick smoke obscured their vision, making it impossible to see who had fired that rocket at them. Even with Kimiko's heat sensors, they wouldn't be able to identify the person.

Clay pulled on the rope and heard a metallic object sliding towards him. There was a snip and then he reached the end of his rope; it had been cut straight through with a knife.  
"What in tarnation?" exclaimed Clay in utter disbelief. He looked up and as the smoke cleared, he recognised the red armour of…

"Grey?" exclaimed Kimiko. "What are you doing?" she asked incredulously. She didn't understand what was going on. Surely, they had neutralised Valerie Grey as a threat?

Valerie stood defensively in front in between Phantom and the Praetors, armed with the huge weapon that had been given to her by Skulker. Her face couldn't be seen underneath the helmet, as always, but her anger was still visible through it.  
"You used me," she said angrily. "You all used me." She cocked her modified bazooka, as it were an oversized gun and then aimed it at the Praetors. "You're going to pay for that, robots."

"Oh yeah?" exclaimed Kimiko, as she stood up. "You and what army, sister?"

"Phantom's all the army I need," was Valerie's stern reply.

"Don't think so, babe," came a reply from her side.

Before Valerie could even turn round and react, Raimundo appeared out of nowhere and slashed at her with the glowing plasma claws on his right hand. The tips of the claws shredded deep through her armour as if it were snow. Metal melted and became liquid around the claws, as they tore through her armour to leave huge gashes both in it and her tanned skin. She cried out and was then knocked over by a well-timed kick to her legs.

Raimundo then turned his head and smiled at Phantom. It was an arrogant, cocky smile, the one he kept giving to Phantom for what seemed to be nor reason.  
"Nice to see you alive and kicking, Phantom," he told the black-armoured cyborg. "When you disappeared, I thought you'd pulled through somehow."

"Yeah?" exclaimed Phantom with a deliberately blatant, feigned tone of interest.

"Yeah," was Raimundo's reply, as he nodded as if to emphasise his reply. "Only someone like you could have survived something like that." The smile on his tanned Brazilian face widened, if such a thing were possible. "I always liked you, Phantom," he said. "What do you say you join us, huh? You'll have it great! We've got everything you've ever wanted. You want it, you name it, you'll get it."

There was a hopeful look on Raimundo's face, as he looked at Phantom.  
"Come on, what do you say?" he asked Phantom curiously. "Anything you ever want, you can have it. Just join us and pledge allegiance to Lady Fenton. Money? Fast cars? Videogames? Hot chi…? Um… You name it. Come on, you know you want too."

Phantom couldn't believe what he was hearing. Only a moment ago, they had been trying to kill him. Now Praetor Raimundo was trying to get him to pledge allegiance to the Fake Jasmine and renounce his cause? Did Raimundo realise how unlikely that was? Perhaps he did, after all, the expression on his face looked almost desperate and full of fear.

Here he was at another crossroads. Phantom could still remember giving in to Walker and signing up to join the Blue Bow Army, out of fear of having his secret identity exposed. He had caved in to a threat. That had been a mistake, Phantom knew that now. The way Blue Bow had betrayed him, how Walker had tried to kill him and his family soon after the attack on Raven Wharf, still haunted his mind. What if he were to accept Praetor Raimundo's offer? Would he be betrayed again?

Back then, when he had signed his name on the Blue Bow contract, Phantom had rejected his own ideals and that of his sister. To save his secret identity, Phantom… no, Danny Manson, had sacrificed his own ideals. His distrust of FentonWorx and of the Blue Bow had all been put aside, just to keep one secret identity safe. He should have been more careful with it. Danny should have known better. Yet now, would he cave in to Raimundo's offer? Would he sacrifice his promise to his Grandfather, his vow to bring down FentonWorx and the Fake Jasmine, all for the supposed promise of whatever he wanted?

Sam had called Paulina shallow. She herself had once been as shallow as Paulina and she regretted every moment of it. Would Sam think of her brother as shallow if he accepted Raimundo's offer and pledged allegiance to Fake Jasmine? No, she would probably think worse of him. Sam would probably never trust her brother again. She would probably despise him for the rest of her life.

"Yeah," began Phantom calmly, "I'll pledge allegiance to Lady Jasmine…" He saw the smile on Raimundo's face. "… over my dead body!" he finished, before he fired a plasma bolt straight into the Praetor's chest. He was surprised by the force of his blow; he never expected his blast to send Praetor Raimundo flying into the metallic wall like that.

"Treacherous dog!" cried another voice from behind him.

A wave of water crashed into Phantom and knocked him back off his feet. As he crashed back down onto the metallic floor, he instantly knew who had hit him. There was no doubt it was Praetor Omi, the pint-sized Demigeist with control over water. Who else could it be?

"I do not believe that an honourable warrior would ever stoop so low as you," stated Omi, as he closed in on Phantom with a spear in his hand, its point angled down towards the floor. "To hit your enemy while he is offering him your hand is most dishonourable, yet I must admire your stubbornness to your cause. If only you were as loyal to whatever insane cause you hold as you were to Lady Jasmine."

The small, blue Demigeist looked up towards the other Praetors.  
"I trust it that you will have no problem with me terminating this useless piece of junk?" he asked the other Praetors. "He is, as you say, a lame chicken."

"Lame duck," corrected Raimundo, as he picked himself off the floor.

"That too," stated Omi.

Phantom knew that he was outnumbered and possibly outclassed. He could possibly fight against the Praetors, one by one, but not all four of them. They were all Demigeists. What powers he had, they were likely to have as well. If he tried to fight against them, they'd beat him down again. Even worse, they'd tear him apart, limb by robotic limb and what if the mysterious entity that had saved him couldn't get to him again?

No, he couldn't risk fighting against all of them. Yet he couldn't leave, not with Echelon/Valerie left here in the corridor at their mercy. Phantom had to fight back, if only to save the girl that had hunted him down for Skulker.  
"What makes you think you can terminate me that easily?" asked Phantom curiously.

"Silence, traitor!" snapped Omi, before he stabbed out with his spear.

"Missed!" taunted Phantom, as he leapt away from Omi and then ducked underneath the fiery arrowheads that Kimiko threw at him. He stood in front of the prone body of the human that had once been known as Echelon. "Is that the best you can do?" he mocked them, before he fired a few plasma blasts at them.

One managed to catch Praetor Clay in the shoulder, eliciting a terrible roar of pain from him.  
"Why, you dirty varmint!" he cried angrily. "I'll teach you to mess with us." He flung his boomerang straight at Phantom; it sliced its way through the air and hit nothing. "Try this Seismic Kick on for size!" he called out, before slamming his foot down on to the ground with such force the corridor shook violently and everyone except for him stumbled and fell.

Clay used the momentum he gained from slamming his foot down into the ground to propel himself forwards. He ran straight at Phantom and swung both his arms at Phantom. Those hands of his, large and strong, would have gone through thin air had been a second slower. As it was, he managed to grab Phantom before he became intangible and threw him into the wall with all his might.

The wall should have dented, but the force of the blow propelled Phantom straight through him, leaving a torn, gaping hole in the metal.

Phantom groaned, as he tried to get back up to his feet. He had never been slammed into a wall that hard before. His head seemed to be ringing and throbbing with pain. A part of him feared that he was bleeding internally from the blow, but he knew his cyborg body was far more resilient than that.

A few more burning projectiles hurtled straight towards him. They would have hit, but Phantom had thankfully regained his sense by then.

"Where'd he go?" exclaimed Kimiko, as she stepped through the hole in the wall.

Before she knew what was going out, a fist materialised out of nowhere and struck her.  
"Sorry about that," apologised Phantom, as he became visible in front of them. "I normally don't hit a girl, but you sure ain't one."

"Why you…!" began Clay angrily, as he stepped through the hole in the wall he had made with Phantom's body.

"Hold it!" called out Kimiko, as she staggered back on to her feet. "Leave him to me. You go protect Lady Fenton." She wiped the back of her hand against her lips in that clichéd sort of way you normally get from someone who has just been punched really hard in a movie. "He's all mine."

"I'm flattered," retorted Phantom, "but you're not my type."

Kimiko whirled round to glare at the other Praetors.  
"What are you waiting for?" she asked angrily. "Go! And deal with that treacherous human on the way out."

"That's not going to happen!" protested Phantom, before he rushed straight at Kimiko.

"Too right, it ain't!" protested Clay, as he stepped in front of Kimiko and blocked Phantom's attack with his barrel-shaped chest. He let the cyborg bounce off him harmlessly, as if he was made from a gelatinous mass. "You're not fighting him alone, Kimiko."

Phantom felt slightly conflicted as he got up to his feet. On the one hand, it was unfair that the Praetors were ganging up on him. On the other hand, it was kind of gratifying to know that they considered him enough of a formidable foe that they needed to team up against him in the first place.  
"I'm not fighting the both of you," he protested, as he glared at the two of them.

"Of course not," whispered a Brazilian-accented voice from behind him, before he was grabbed from behind.

The two Praetors watched as Raimundo lifted Phantom up into the air and then slammed him back down into the ground again, with such force that they nearly winced at the sight of it.

Praetor Raimundo would have dusted his hands off, but it was difficult, what with a sword being in one hand and the other having long, sharp claws attached to the back of it.  
"You know, Phantom, I wish you hadn't refused," he told the cyborg calmly, as he floated above his body. He looked very disappointed, almost heart-broken at the thought of Phantom's refusal. "Still, if you don't want to join, I guess we can't make you."

The sword he held crackled with electricity. It sparked and crackled like some mad scientist's Tesla coil. Raimundo dived down and stabbed his claws at Phantom, only to miss as Phantom leapt out of the way. He swung his sword and caught sliced past Phantom's armour, nearly ripping a huge gaping hole through the black metal.

Electricity shocked Phantom momentarily and he was flung backwards. He felt as if smoke was coming off his body like in the cartoons and he could almost smell the scent of roasting flesh. It wasn't pleasant. He fired a blast of energy at Raimundo, as the Praetor approached him; it was parried by a deft flick of his wrist. Phantom disappeared and seconds later, he struck Raimundo in the chest.

Clay and Kimiko rushed straight at him.

The fiery Praetor, Kimiko, became a flurry of literally flaming punches and kicks. She moved with the grace of a dancer, or to be more precise, a karate expert. Kimiko seemed to spin in the air like a top. Her fists curved through the air and flaming shuriken flew thick and fast. Phantom had little chance to block her attacks. Blow after fiery blow hit the cyborg and Kimiko didn't seem to relent.

Out of the corner of his eye, Phantom saw Clay prepare himself for a powerful kick. As Phantom did his best to block Kimiko's attacks with his arms, there not being room for him to create an energy shield around himself, a thought occurred to him. A smile slowly spread across his lips.

It infuriated Praetor Kimiko.  
"What? Why are you smiling?" she asked irritably. "You think I'm weak? I'm not good enough? I'll show you!" She leapt back and flung a whole volley of fireballs straight at Phantom, just as Clay kicked out at him.

Phantom quickly grabbed Clay's foot and used the Praetor's own momentum to spin him round. He flung the Praetor straight back into the volley of fireballs and at Kimiko.  
"Nah, I think you're pretty good," he said as Clay crashed into Kimiko, "for a girl." Then he waited, hoping that he had been right about Kimiko's personality.

"What?" screamed Kimiko from underneath Clay. "What did you say?"

"Kimiko, calm down!" protested Raimundo, as he dived back down towards Phantom. He slashed out at Phantom with his claws, just as Kimiko threw Clay off of herself in a fiery burst of flames.

Frankly, Phantom was surprised they hadn't gone off sooner, but Kimiko's latest outburst did the trick. The sprinklers went off, dousing them in a fine spray of cooling water. It almost felt refreshing on what little of Phantom's skin that was exposed. Yet far more was refreshing was the thought of all that water being doused on a fire-based robot like Kimiko.

Water splattered against them, giving the allusion of a watery aura surrounding them. Kimiko's long black hair was flattened with water and the flames with which she had burnt were all but gone.

The Praetor screamed out angrily. She rushed straight at Phantom, shoving Raimundo aside in the process and lashed out at him with punches and kicks that had lost their strength with the loss of her flames. Kimiko screamed out in rage, as she hit Phantom blindly.

"You need to chill," was Phantom's remark, before he blasted her with a burst of plasma energy.

"Chill? I'm calm," protested Kimiko, as she got back up to her feet. "I'm the calmest person, I know!" she screamed furiously. "Just watch how calm I am when I take you down!" The Praetor rushed straight back at Phantom, blinded with rage.

Phantom leapt into the air, his body spun round and he kicked out at her. He landed back on his feet and watched as Kimiko collapsed to the floor with a heavy splash. This was followed by silence. None of the other two Praetors moved; he didn't expect that. They just stared at Kimiko in silence, contemplating what had just happened.

"I…" began Kimiko, only to trail off, as she stared up at the ceiling quietly. "I can't move… Why can't I move?"

"Clay, get Kimiko out of here," snapped Raimundo, before he turned to face Phantom. "I'll deal with Phantom."

Those words were not exactly what Phantom wanted to hear, but he had expected them for a long time. He thought about leaving, now that one of the Praetors was out of commission. That left three more, but with Praetor Clay no doubt taking Kimiko off for repairs, that meant only two were still present to stop him. With two Praetors on his heels, would he be able to proceed through Central White Tower and get to Fake Jasmine?

Suddenly, Phantom realised that something was amiss.  
"Where's Omi?" he wondered out loud. Then he remembered Valerie, whom had been left slumped against the side of the corridor outside.

A terrible thought occurred to him. While he had been battling against the Praetors, the one named Omi must have been doing something else. The small Praetor hadn't participated in their battle, when he could easily have done so. Phantom realised that Omi must have been dealing with Valerie somehow.

"He's probably taking her to Walker," was Raimundo's accented remark. "I've never thought of Omi as a person to execute somebody, you know, just as I never thought you'd turn against us."

That remark seemed to hit a nerve with Phantom. His face seemed to set into a determined look of righteous fury.  
"Turned on you?" he exclaimed in disbelief. "Hey, news flash, you guys turned on us! Have you seen what it's like out there?" His fists clenched tighter than ever before, so much so that the fingers nearly dug straight through the metal and into the palm of his hands. "The city's like a war zone," he told Raimundo. "No one's happy. Not the robots, not even the humans you were built to protect."

Phantom noticed a strange look spread across Raimundo's face. No, on second thoughts, it wasn't a strange look. That expression on the Praetor's face was doubt. He had seen it many a time before out there in Amitropolis, not least on his own face.

"You don't understand," said Raimundo with a shake of his head. "How can we protect the humans, when even they themselves will hurt each other? If they're… If they all think as one, why would they hurt each other?" He didn't sound very convinced though. "This is for their own good, so they can survive."

"I'm half-human, you know," stated Phantom calmly, "and I can tell you mind control stinks. As a human, I'd rather die than be controlled by that fake!"

"Fake?" exclaimed Raimundo curiously. "What fake?"

Worry started to creep in, as Phantom continued to think about Valerie and what fate would befall her if he didn't hurry. Then there was the fate of Sam and Tucker. What would happen to them if he didn't hurry? Had any harm befallen them during his stealthy siege on the Five Towers?  
"I'm sorry, but I really don't have time for this," protested Phantom, as he went intangible and ran through all the Praetors, leaping through the hole in the wall that he had made.

He stopped and looked around him. There didn't seem to be any sign of Valerie anywhere around. Where could she have been taken to? Praetor Raimundo suggested that she had been taken to Walker, but that only begged the question of where Walker was.

Suddenly, Phantom was pinned to the wall. He glanced sideways to see Raimundo's claws stabbed into the wall and buried one millimetre into the metallic surface of his shoulder. Phantom glanced back towards Raimundo, the shock on his face slowly disappearing as he saw the smile on the Praetor's lips.

"You didn't think you'd be able to get away from me that easily, did ya'?" asked Raimundo curiously. He chuckled, before he said, "No way, buddy. I'm not letting you get away from me. You're mine. Your shiny, metallic ass is mine." The Praetor was uncomfortably close to Phantom, his eyes glazed over with some kind of maniacal essence that a person like Danny Manson or Phantom couldn't quite understand.

"Where's Walker?" asked Phantom determinedly.

"I think that's gonna be the last of your worries, Phan'," retorted Raimundo.

There was a tiny bit of silence, as a smile slowly spread across Phantom's lips.  
"You know, I don't think so," he told Raimundo with a shake of his head. He suddenly became intangible and went straight into the Praetor. Phantom didn't even attempt to leave Raimundo's body, he just went inside it. He didn't even know how it would work, but he attempted to control the Praetor's body and access his hard drive.

Logically, what he was doing didn't make sense. Even the Geist Chip didn't make much sense. How was it possible for a piece of technology to enable him to walk through walls? How did it do it? More importantly, how was he capable of entering someone with that technology and then being able to control them? Surely, if he was intangible, he would have no way of affecting a physical body?

Yet somehow, he managed to access Raimundo's hard drive. He found something that shocked him, something unmentionable and then there was something else. Phantom found it! He knew where Valerie was being taken to!

"Urgh, get out of me!" cried Raimundo, before one of his hands became intangible and he reached down deep inside himself.

Phantom didn't feel the hand, but he somehow felt Raimundo pulling him out of the Praetor's body. He was suddenly pulled right out of the Praetor and flung across the corridor away from Raimundo. The cyborg landed on his rear with a heavy thud.  
"What's the matter, Rai?" he asked the Praetor tauntingly. "You didn't enjoy that?"

Raimundo's face looked tired, as if he had just finished twelve all-nighters in a row. He seemed to be breathing heavily, a strange thing for a robot to do, as he glared at Phantom with a confused, conflicted expression on his features.  
"You…" he began, only to trail off. "I… But…" The Praetor shook his head, then screamed wordlessly.

A bolt of lightning arced through the air without warning and struck Phantom, its electrons surging through into his body. He felt his heart convulse erratically and feared that it would stop. Every muscle, even the robotics, seemed to have a seizure. The pain that filled him was unbearable. It was all his mind could feel. There was no thought. He couldn't think, it seemed as if the electricity even surged through his brain, overriding the natural electrical impulses within it.

There was suddenly a burst of energy and it stopped.

* * *

Valerie thought her life would be over, as she was stood up against the wall. In front of her was a whole line of Geists, each of them armed, their plasma cannons aimed straight at her. She looked at each of them. There was no face to see. She couldn't tell whether they felt remorse at their acts, but she knew they didn't. There was nothing reassuring about them or her surroundings.

No one would come to save her. This was real life. There wouldn't be any last minute heroics or accidents. In real life, there were no reprieves. Heroes never existed. Everyone was a villain. All there were in this world were victims, an endless number of people held hostage to their own actions or the inconsiderate actions of others. Everyone needed saving, but there was no one to save them, merely false hopes and dreams.

It is impossible to be saved by false hopes.

So Valerie closed her eyes and lowered her head. She waited for the end.

_**END TRANSMISSION #09**_


	11. Transmission 10

Author's Note: The narrative in this chapter may jump around a bit. Hopefully, you'll be able to follow the narrative fine without any further explanation from me, but just in case, read what is written down carefully so you don't get lost.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #10**_

"Welcome, Mr. Manson," greeted a voice that echoed out all around him.

The room was a gigantic circular affair, with evenly spaced archways, each with a thick pane of glass in it that looked out on to a thick metallic shutter. There were many pillars that stretched from the black, polished floor, like an ebony mirror, to the domed ceiling above and on the floor was painted a shield. It was the Fenton Family's Coat of Arms – quarterly argent and gules, a cross quarterly sable and argent between in the first and fourth quarters a fleurs-de-lis sable and in the second and third quarters a crescent argent.

In the centre of the room was a golden pillar with a throne carved into its base. Carved a good three metres above the top of the seat was a symbol that was like a cog and within its hole was a capital F atop a capital W; it was the symbol of the FentonWorx Corporation.

Seated in the throne was a young girl, about sixteen years of age, with long red hair that trailed behind her like a cascading waterfall of cinnabar. She was dressed completely in white, her face pale, her eyes stared out in front of her with a dead intensity and her lips formed into a concrete smile.  
"I personally did not think you would get this far," she said emotionlessly, "Daniel Manson."

"You don't think much of me, do you?" retorted Phantom, as he slid into a defensive position on the polished black floor. He laughed abruptly and bitterly at the comment. "Well, guess what? I don't think much of a fake, so I guess I'm not very impressed with you, either."

"How dare you?" echoed a voice all around him. "How dare you call Lady Fenton that?"

There was a flash of light and then three humanoid robots appeared. One was large and muscular, black with a Stetson hat; he was Praetor Clay. The second was red, with black ponytails; she was Praetor Kimiko. The third was green with a tanned face; he was Praetor Raimundo. All three of the remaining Praetors, glared at him angrily as they stood in between Phantom and Fake Jasmine.

"You're not gonna harm one hair on Ms. Fenton's head," stated Clay sternly.

"We'll cut you down before you even try," added Kimiko, whilst Raimundo stared on silently.

Phantom was surprised to see that the three Praetors had repaired themselves so quickly. Then again, the damage he inflicted on them wasn't so extensive that they couldn't be repaired in record time. These Praetors were well built, after all. There was no way he could have destroyed any of them, not even the shortest of the four. Yes, he couldn't destroy Praetor Omi; he didn't really have the heart when it came down to it. In the end, he didn't have to…

* * *

"_Why did you come and rescue her?" the voice had said, echoing around what had been, in effect, an execution chamber._

_Phantom had recognised that voice, as he had stood amongst the twisted metallic wreckage of Valerie Grey's former executioners. At the time, there had been no need for him to turn round to face the Praetor. He had known from the moment the voice sounded that it had belonged to Omi, the Head of the Dong Shui Battalion.  
"Get out of here," he had whispered to Valerie calmly. "I'll stall him."_

"_I don't need your charity, robot," Valerie had said in response. She had glared up at him with dry eyes, the sort that all youths in Amitropolis had. "I can take care of myself."_

_There had been no time for Phantom to respond to Valerie's comment. He had turned his back to her and had faced Omi with a determined expression on his face.  
"What was that?" he had asked Omi. "I didn't quite catch it. Must be hard to get normal-sized people to hear you from all the way down there." At the time, he had thought it would rile Omi up enough for him to completely forget about Valerie._

_However, he had noticed that the composure of Omi's face had not changed. That had come as a surprise to him, though it shouldn't had done so._

_Omi had remained completely calm despite Phantom's taunts. There had been no outburst unlike with Kimiko.  
"I may be small," he had said in response to Phantom's taunt, "but I have great power. Trees and mountains may shatter my body, but harsh words will do no such thing."_

"_Isn't that supposed to be, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'?" Phantom had conjectured._

"_Whatever," Omi had said dismissively. "You know the true meaning to what I intended to say." He twirled his spear round in what was an impressive display of his skills and then slammed its blunt, orbed end into the ground. "I do not know how you defeated Praetor Kimiko and Raimundo, but you will not escape from me." He sighed. "It is a shame that I have to fight you," he had told Phantom pompously. "After all, I am required by my programming to protect human beings. But you are not human, are you? Your robot side stops you from being more compassionate and human._

"_Your human side stops you from being stronger than me. You can never become as great as me. You have no chance against me. You might as well surrender now." The Praetor had not sneered all that time he had been talking with Phantom. Omi's face had been calm and collected. His words had sounded as if they had contained great meaning and wisdom.  
"Sometimes, when I think about you, I pity you," he had continued. "If you will not do what is right and surrender your life, then please allow me the honour of putting you out of your misery."_

_Phantom could remember having been a little off-put by the Praetor's words. Despite what Omi had said, or had intended to say, words did hurt and Omi's had been barbed, pointed words.  
"You," he had began, "You don't know anything about me. I'm plenty compassionate, unlike you. There's no way I'm going to loose to a pompous fruit loop like you."_

* * *

The rage that Phantom had felt when he faced Praetor Omi was still in his heart. It was something akin to hatred in the way it burnt inside him. As he faced the three remaining Praetors and the Fake Jasmine, he couldn't help but hate them, the way they acted as if they were the good guys, as if they were the ones being unfairly treated.

What did they know about being unfairly treated? They were the ones that lived in the Five Towers, beyond the reach of the crime and the tough life that most Amitropolitans had to suffer.

Without warning, all three Praetors rushed straight at Phantom…

* * *

_The ground had burst in front of Omi and a huge gush of water had rushed out._

_It had then struck Phantom straight in the chest and had knocked him off his feet. The water had spread and he had found his head had been submerged in a stream of ice cold water that smashed into him with the force of several punches. He had not been sure whether his human face would survive in the frigid water. The force of it and the coldness of it were bound to have damaged it irreparably, or so he had thought at the time._

* * *

As Phantom watched the three Praetors rush straight at him, he expected to feel the force of their blows and he expected it to feel like the rush of water that Omi had struck him with.

"Stop!"

All three Praetors skidded to a halt on the black, polished floor as if it were ice. Perhaps, for metallic feet like theirs, it was like ice to them. Yet they did so effortlessly, or at least, it had seemed that way to Phantom. Neither of them advanced any further. They had merely turned round to look at the one that had given the order, Fake Jasmine herself.

Fake Jasmine appeared calm, like she always did in her broadcasts.  
"You are no match for him," she told them sternly. "Leave!" She then remained silently, seated there in her throne, staring out sightlessly in front of her.

"But…" began Raimundo, only to receive a stern, sightless gaze from Fake Jasmine. "As you wish, m'lady." He then turned to face Phantom. "You're lucky," he said and smiled, before he disappeared through the floor.

The others looked reluctantly back and forth between where Raimundo had once stood, Fake Jasmine and Phantom. It seemed as if they were torn between their programming and the orders that Fake Jasmine had given. Not only that, but there was something else and Phantom knew exactly what it was; they wanted to ignore Fake Jasmine's orders and kill him, Phantom. It was to have been their revenge against him.

Phantom noticed that Kimiko looked severely disappointed, like a jilted girlfriend, as she disappeared. He couldn't help but think what a date with her would be like; no doubt they'd end up fighting to the death. Heck, they'd probably start fighting the moment the date started. She so clearly wanted him dead, after all.

Just like Omi. He had been so adamant that Phantom did not survive that despite his defeat, he had still attempted to kill him. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't known what hit him. Omi had rushed up to him and had grabbed on to him. The idea had been to self-destruct and take out Phantom with him, yet Omi had not anticipated Valerie Grey coming back to help the cyborg.

Valerie had knocked Omi backwards. The shock had made the Praetor loose his grip on Phantom, which had been just as well, for only then had Phantom been able to whisk Valerie away to safety. If Phantom had not been released, all three of them would have died in the explosion.

"I must admit, Mr. Manson, you've been quite a pain in the posterior," stated a voice from seemingly behind Fake Jasmine, disturbing Phantom from his recent memories. "You constantly hid from me, perhaps subconsciously or maybe even consciously. Either way, you did a good job of escaping my grasp, but you had to let your guard down eventually and I'm glad you did it so soon too." The speaker emerged from the darkness and it wasn't whom Phantom expected it to be.

The man was bald, with a pale face and a beak like nose, with a grin that seemed grotesquely large, almost like that of a clown. His lab coat was white, contrasting greatly amongst his black clothes and gloves.  
"The moment you let yourself be captured by Praetor Clay in that FentonWorx warehouse, you were mine," he continued with a satisfied grin, as he leaned on his walking stick, which seemed to have bat-wings carved into it below its orb-shaped grip.

"Who…? Who are you?" asked Phantom curiously.

"The man that built the cybernetic implants that are now a part of you," was the bald man's reply. "The name is Dr. Frederick Gotik. It is, of course, a pleasure to meet you."

"_What if they do find out? What then, Danny?_" Sam had asked Danny the day after he had destroyed the Insurgent construction robot.

Phantom went pale at Dr. Gotik's words. Surely, not? Had the recent attempt on his life by Walker's Geists merely been an attempt to retrieve the cybernetic implants that he had wrongly been given?  
"You…?" he began, only to trail off. "This has all been…?"

Dr. Gotik laughed.  
"The game we played with you? Certainly," was his reply. "It was a more subtle plan on my part. We sign you up, get you to do a few things for us and then we take back what is rightfully ours." He chuckled. "It was a shame that '_someone_' miscalculated your strength, or rather, the power of the Phantom Armour. Heaven forbid anyone should think that what you've achieved had anything to do with you."

The look on Phantom's face prompted Dr. Gotik to continue.  
"What? Did you think that anything was under your control?" he asked Phantom curiously. "Your powers, your achievements, all were thanks to my technology, the Phantom Armour. It was designed to give its recipient the powers of a Geist and the strength of a Geist."

What was Gotik getting at? Phantom couldn't quite understand.  
"Yeah, but I was the one controlling those powers," he protested against Gotik. "So, it was all my achievement."

"Wrong," drawled another voice.

It was no doubt that the voice belonged to General Walker. Phantom could never forget that voice with its Southern accent. He could never forget the authoritative boom to it that seemed to come straight from the diaphragm of Walker's barrel-chested frame. It seemed as if he would never forget the voice in his entire life and that always the memory of that voice would come in a small package deal, accompanied with the memory of Walker's knowing smile as he black-mailed him into pledging allegiance to the Blue Bow Army and to the FentonWorx Corporation.

There was it was, on Walker's lips, almost as if he had read Phantom's mind and had put that smile on his face so as to not disappoint.  
"What did you ever do for Amitropolis?" he asked Phantom. "Defeat Skulker? Well, guess what? He died, because we triggered his self-destruct system. You didn't retrieve the CHAOS, our troops did. The only reason you were there was for us to gather combat data on the Phantom Armour."

"The Phantom Armour was practically carrying you all that time," mentioned Gotik with a smile on his lips. "All those fancy combat moves, none of them were because you thought of doing them. It was all the Phantom Armour." He chuckled at the thought. "A pathetic little worm like you, capable of bringing down the world's greatest combat robot ever built?" he exclaimed. "Bah! Utter nonsense. I've seen your grades. They're pathetic. You're not very smart. The only good quality about you wasn't yours to begin with."

He then motioned to Walker with his head.  
"Now, if you would be so kind as to give up the Phantom Armour," he said calmly, as General Walker advanced on Phantom, "I would be very grateful."

"I… I don't understand," protested Phantom with a shake of his head. "Why?" He then looked towards Fake Jasmine, whom had said nothing throughout the entire conversation. "And what about her, huh? Did you build her too?"

Dr. Gotik laughed.  
"I built and programmed her," he said carefully, as he turned round to look at Fake Jasmine. "She's a wonderful piece of work, isn't she?" he commented with a sigh. "I'm quite proud of her, I must admit, but not quite as proud of the Phantom Armour."

"You planned it all from the very beginning, didn't you?" commented Phantom. "The moment you found out the Phantom Armour was lost, you recreated Skulker to increase the Insurgent attacks. You thought that whomever had the Phantom Armour would use it to become a superhero vigilante and come out into the open to fight against Skulker. All this time, you were working on the CHAOS, am I right?" He paused for a while and from Dr. Gotik's grim expression and dour silence, he knew he was right, so he continued, "But you couldn't test it out on your own. If you did, the G3 would know and they'd have shut you down. Even reprogramming Fake Jasmine to obey you wouldn't have done the trick, so you got Skulker to steal the CHAOS. He would test it out for you and you'd have none of the risk."

A smile soon spread across his lips, as he noticed that Gotik's expression seemed to get grimmer with every second.  
"Skulker never modified the CHAOS to allow him to control the minds of humans," continued Phantom calmly. "He wasn't skilled enough to do it and nor was anyone else in his outfit. Technus couldn't have modified it, he wasn't qualified. He was built to fix normal household items, not military technology; he was incapable of modifying the CHAOS, even with the blueprints. The option to control human minds must have been built in from the very beginning, by you."

The surprised look on Dr. Gotik's face remained for a quite a while, but it soon disappeared into a smile.  
"That is quite good," he laughed. "I'm impressed. Tell me, for how long have you been playing dumb, hm? How long have you been acting stupid?"

That was a good question, Phantom had to admit. He wasn't going to tell Dr. Gotik the answer to that question, though. There was no way he was going to tell Gotik of how long he had spent in the hospital after the operation by Dr. Manson, and how he had felt a strange presence in the room with him. He was not going to tell Gotik of how the strange presence had talked to him and told him how she suspected that he was in danger.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't remember. Danny could still remember the events in the hospital as if they had happened only the day before. He could still remember how the voice had talked to him soothingly, how it had told him of the Phantom Armour and what it was capable of doing. It had told him of how she had managed to thwart an attempt to steal the Phantom Armour, but in the chaos that ensued, it accidentally got lost amongst the mail sorting rooms and had ended up packaged and sent off to the Gordon King Hospital.

Of course, Phantom had to admit that he wouldn't have been able to completely figure everything out, had he not fallen into Dr. Gotik's office on his way up. The lab book that he had found next to the photograph he had knocked over was enough proof he needed. Like any good scientist, Dr. Gotik had kept a record of every experiment he had done and every modification he made to his CHAOS. The entire thing helped slot everything into place.

"The silent treatment, eh?" exclaimed Dr. Gotik calmly. "Well, it doesn't matter how clever or stupid you really are. You're not going to leave this place alive. Why should I care what you think or what you know?" He then turned to look at General Walker. "Albert, if you would please?"

"There's one thing I don't get, though," continued Phantom, as if Dr. Gotik had said nothing. "How'd Valerie Grey figure into it all?"

Walker laughed.  
"She wasn't supposed to be there," he said calmly. "It was supposed to be her father, but she somehow stole the armour we'd given him and took his place." He reached to his side slowly, brushing away his white trench coat to reveal a gun in its holster by his side. "Not that it mattered," he continued. "She did exactly what we told her to."

The way Walker slowly reached for his gun seemed brash and smug to Phantom, as he stood there. He couldn't believe that Walker felt so confident that he would slowly reach for his gun, when he, Phantom, could so easily stop him.  
"Stop!" he called out to Walker. "Don't you dare try to…" he began, only to be interrupted as he was engulfed in a brilliant flash of light.

It emanated from within. The light passed over his body and where it passed, the metallic armour disappeared to be replaced with cloth and flesh. Soon, there was no Phantom left standing there in front of Walker. There was only Danny, defenceless, wearing only the long-sleeved sweatshirt with its twin-red stripes down each arm and slightly baggy jeans held up by a belt. He wasn't even wearing any shoes. Danny stood there in the white socks he had been wearing when the sirens had gone off; in the blind panic of hearing the sirens he had completely forgotten to put his shoes on.

Gotik laughed.

Walker laughed.  
"Dare try to what?" he asked Danny mockingly.

"You stupid boy, did you really think you could use my invention as you please?" asked Dr. Gotik chidingly. "I built the Phantom Armour and I can shut it down whenever I please. If I had so chose to, I could have shut it down completely when you fought against Skulker and let him take your life." He grinned. "You only got up here because I allowed it," he told Danny. "You think you could have got here all by yourself? Rubbish! Pure rubbish. Playtime is over. It's time you grew up and stopped playing '_superheroes_'."

"This is the real world, boy," said Walker, as he pulled out his gun and aimed it at Danny. "The real world has real consequences. Did you really think I'd let you play the vigilante and not punish you? It was an offence to be a vigilante and still is." He sneered. "I have not forgotten how you broke the law," he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Let me tell you this. Despite what you may have thought when I made you join the Blue Bow Army, no one is above the law. No one is rewarded for breaking it. Eventually, everyone will get their just desserts."

A smile spread across Walker's lips, as he saw the look of pure terror on Danny's face.  
"It's time you were sentenced, Daniel Manson," he said sternly. "For your crime of vigilantism and your crimes against the FentonWorx Corporation, I hereby sentence you to death." He pulled the trigger.

Danny winced. He expected to be hit in the chest. The anticipation of the searing bullet piercing his flesh made him shudder in pure terror. His mind focused on the agonising pain and the possible coldness of his body, as his life and blood left him. Danny feared his own demise. In the split second it took, he despised Gotik, despised Walker and the FentonWorx Executives, he hated himself and wished that everything had been different.

"Why?" croaked a weak and unsteady voice.

Not feeling the pain, Danny opened his eyes and looked towards Walker. He saw the pale-faced man was not facing him, but rather where Gotik once stood. Danny gasped, as he saw Gotik lying on the floor with his head raised trembling, eyes focused with a look of betrayal on Walker. He couldn't understand it, but a part of him wasn't surprised. How could he be surprised that someone whom had betrayed him would also betray Dr. Gotik as well?

Walker's lips were set into a grim straight line, as he looked down on Gotik with smoke pouring twisting out of the barrel of his gun like a grey snake.  
"You broke the law," was Walker's simple response. "Everyone who breaks the law must be punished, even you, Dr. Gotik. There will be no exception. No one is above the law, except for me, because I make the law." His lips soon curled into a small smile, before he continued, "I am the Police, the Judge, the Jury, the Jailer and the Executioner."

He then turned round to look Danny, a wild glint in his eyes that sparkled with a hint of madness that Danny had never seen in him before. Walker swivelled round in his position like a gun turret, the barrel of his firearm kept dead straight in front of him, its angle to his body not altering once.  
"Now for you, Daniel Manson," he stated calmly. "I must admit, you have served me well, but even you must be punished. If the New World Order is to be complete, those who have sinned in the Old World must be eradicated. Those that betrayed me – Sir Rupert Greenhithe, the G3 and the FentonWorx Corporation, all must be punished and you will have the honour of being the first."

Danny couldn't understand it. How did Greenhithe and the G3 betray Walker? How did the FentonWorx Corporation betray him? Was all that he had done been out of revenge and revenge for what? It made no sense, but then again, from the mad look on Walker's face, he doubted there was much logic behind the General's reasoning.

It was then that Walker noticed something. Danny's sleeves were so long they reached down to his knuckles and his hands were clenched, such that he could not see them. A paranoid look spread across his face. Was it possible that Danny Manson was hiding something in his sleeves? He couldn't believe it. This young boy was nothing more than a gnat to him. Walker pulled the trigger.

"What is this?" exclaimed Walker in surprise, as he stared in disbelief at the still standing Danny Manson. "Impossible!" He pulled the trigger again and again. "Who… What are you?" he cried in disbelief. "Why can't I kill you?" Walker cried out in rage and flung his gun at Danny. It didn't hit.

"_You've got to fight back, Danny,_" echoed a voice within Daniel's mind. "_Fight back._"

"But how?" asked Danny out loud, without giving a thought as to where the voice had come from.

Did it matter? He recognised that voice now. It was the same voice that had spoken to him in the hospital when he had been recovering. It was the same voice that had spoken to him in the Five Towers. Whoever the voice belonged to, they were looking out for him.

"You!" exclaimed Walker suddenly. "So you were the one helping him! But… I'd thought you'd disappeared."

"_Disappeared?_" exclaimed the feminine voice through Danny's mouth. "_No, not really. I've been around, looking after the people of Amitropolis. Someone had to._"

There was suddenly a flash of blinding light. It enveloped Danny and blinded Walker, forcing him to shield his eyes. The glow burnt like the flare of an acetylene torch. The way Walker shrank away from the bright glow, one would have thought the glow was hot as an acetylene flame too. He backed away from the light, shirking away like a shadow mortally wounded by light.

Slowly, the glow began to subside and there in Danny's place stood the black-armoured cyborg known as Phantom.

A golden glow floated not too far away from Danny's head like some firefly.  
"_I've overridden Gotik's hold over the Phantom Armour, Danny_," the voice told. "_You should be able to use your Geist powers against Walker and that impostor now_."

Phantom smiled.  
"Thanks, Jasmine," he thanked the golden glow.

There was a brief moment of silence. The voice said nothing in reply to Phantom's comment. It was as if it had been caught out by his words.  
"_I guess you're not as dense as I thought_," the voice said. "_And call me, Jazz. I hate being called Jasmine._"

Walker cried out in rage, a terrible roar of anger that echoed all around them.  
"Little girl, you and your family really know how to flaunt the rules, don't you?" he growled angrily. "First, you and FentonWorx buy out my security company; now you would relinquish control of the CHAOS from me?" From the very look on his face, it seemed as if he was about to burst with rage. No one in the history of mankind had ever looked as angry as he did.

Yet in an instant, the rage disappeared from his face. He smiled even, as he crossed his arms behind his back.  
"Rule #56," recited Walker sternly, "resisting against the authorities is a punishable offence." Walker swivelled round neatly on his black boots to face Fake Jasmine. "Lady Fenton, it is your duty to pass judgement on these two delinquents and to put into action your sentence."

"Deliberating…" announced Fake Jasmine, as she stared in front of her sightlessly. "Conclusion – Daniel Manson must be executed."

Phantom watched as Fake Jasmine rose from her seat. That was probably an understatement. Fake Jasmine unfolded before him, but even that statement did no justice to what she did. Jazz's impostor seemed to unfold forever in an increasingly complex manner; her arms elongated and her body seemed to expand. The fabric of her dress tore to reveal a green translucent slime and her face, a mask, shuddered and shook until it fell off to shatter on the polished floor.

What stood, for lack of a better word, before him was like a large, green, translucent sculpture of Jasmine Fenton made out of some gelatinous substance. Danny would have described it as snot. Whatever it was, it didn't really matter, for in the centre where a heart would have been if she were real, was some kind of mechanical core connected to wires that trailed down through her body and into the throne.

"_The CHAOS Core!_" exclaimed Jazz.

Fake Jasmine thrust out her right hand and the arm seemed to elongate forever, her fingers seemed to stretch too, until the entire arm was nothing more than a mass of ectoplasmic tentacles. The tentacles smashed into the ground, cracking it and throwing up debris into the air. Phantom had dodged them successfully. That didn't matter to her. She flicked her arm sideways and the tentacles lashed out at the cyborg and caught him in the side.

The cyborg heard Walker laugh as he was knocked aside by Fake Jasmine's tentacles. Phantom paid it no attention, as he became intangible and let the next blow go right through him.  
"Is that all you've got?" he taunted Fake Jasmine. "Geez, you're slow!" He fired off a shot at the CHAOS Core. It struck Fake Jasmine, but served only to dent her body.

"I could say the same for you, cyborg," sneered Walker, as he watched the dent slowly disappear. "Did you really think you could beat Fake Jasmine that easily?" He turned round to face Phantom, as he said those words, and was suddenly hit by a plasma blast to the chest.

There was a smile on Phantom's face, as smoke seemed to rise from his hand. A part of him hoped that the blast wasn't strong enough to mortally wound Walker; the other part of him hoped that the blast hurt a great deal. He was suddenly hit in the face by a glob of green gunk that knocked him over backwards. It clung on to him tightly, as Fake Jasmine spun round, blobs of green slime breaking off and flying through the air.

It clung on to his face tightly. He felt as if he were being submerged in water like during the fight against Omi. Phantom couldn't breathe. He grabbed at the slime and tried to pull it off, only to find that it would not come away from his face. The grip was tighter than he expected it to be.

Fake Jasmine seemed to bulge, her entire body bending over sickeningly. She, or rather, it, seemed to slither through the air like some Chinese dragon. Her head expanded, or rather, her mouth. The thing's mouth became a huge chasm, as Fake Jasmine snaked her way towards Phantom. She swallowed him whole.

Walker smiled, as he walked closer towards the incapacitated cyborg, a burn mark on his white military uniform.  
"Not so smug now are you?" he commented, as he watched Phantom struggle within Fake Jasmine's gelatinous body. He then looked up at the golden light that floated high above in the air, where it could not be harmed by the fighting. "What do you think of your champion now, Ms. Fenton?" he shouted up to her. "He don't seem so tough now, does he?"

He laughed a short, abrupt laugh.  
"Soon, Ms. Fenton, I will find you," Walker called out. "You cannot hide behind that Cyber Ghost for much longer. I will find out where you're hiding and you will be punished for breaking the rules too. You cannot escape the long arm of the law."

There was suddenly an explosion and Walker found himself covered in green slime.

"Yeah, I could have gone intangible and walked out," commented Phantom, as he stood there with slime on his own body, "but I thought this way would be more fun."

"You will pay for that," snarled Walker angrily, as he saw the gelatinous mess that used to be Fake Jasmine. He gasped. "The CHAOS Core!" he exclaimed in disbelief, as he noticed that it was no longer encased in the slimy body of Fake Jasmine. He then turned round to face Phantom, whom had also noticed it lying there on the floor, unprotected and ripe for destruction. "Guards!" he shouted.

Five Geists suddenly rose up out of the floor to stand in between Phantom and the CHAOS Core. Each one bore large shields that protected most of their body. If Phantom were to destroy them, he would have to wait until the shields were dropped down. There was no other w…

A strange expression suddenly spread across Phantom's face. It looked as if he was annoyed with someone or as if he had just realised he was being stupid. The latter option was probably the most likely. After all, he had just realised that his Geist Circuitry hadn't overheated yet. He could just go intangible and walk, or rather run, straight through the Geists with no problems.

If only it were that simple.

Much to Walker's surprise, not to mention Phantom's surprise, the green gelatinous gunk that covered them and the entire floor suddenly started to move. It slid off their bodies, slid off the floor and started to congeal behind the five Geists. The blobs of green slime started to clump together like the viscous gunk in lava lamps. It bubbled and grew, engulfing the CHAOS Core and the five Geists.

"Daniel, you would harm your sister?" called out the voice of Fake Jasmine from the mass of green goo.

"W-w-what?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief.

"_Don't listen to her, Danny_," called out Jazz from above him. "_She's not your sister._"

Fake Jasmine's face formed in the gelatinous mass. Another copy of her face formed within it, until her body became a column of translucent faces.  
"But he is a Fenton," stated Fake Jasmine in several voices, as many as there were heads on her hideous, cancerous body. "Not Daniel Manson, but Daniel Fenton. I recognised his DNA. He is a Fenton, through and through."

"The Fentons' son?" exclaimed Walker in disbelief, as he turned round to look at Phantom. "Impossible!" he protested. "That cannot be Daniel Fenton; he died during Skulker's first attack on Amitropolis!" He shook his head in disbelief. "Impossible," he called out again, as he turned to look towards Fake Jasmine. "You're obviously malfunctioning."

"I cannot malfunction," stated Fake Jasmine in protest. "Only imperfect humans malfunction, or should I say, go insane?" Though all her faces were at different angles, some facing the floor, others facing skywards, all turned their gaze towards Walker or appeared to, anyway. "You are the only insane one here, General," stated Fake Jasmine calmly. "To think that you could rule? An imperfect, irrational human, like you? Perhaps it is best if you were to experience true rationality."

Green, translucent tentacles that dripped viscous green fluids, sprouted out from the mouths of Fake Jasmine's face. They ensnared Dr. Gotik's body and pulled it into her. Others lashed out and grabbed Walker.

"Let go of me!" cried Walker angrily, as he tried to wrest free from the tentacles. "Stop it! I command you! Let go of me, you… you… FAKE!" He struggled and thrashed within Fake Jasmine's octopus-like grasp, but was unable to break free. Walker couldn't. The tentacles were neither solid enough to snap nor liquid enough for him to cut through. "No, let go. Let go!" he screamed, as he was pulled towards Fake Jasmine.

Phantom watched almost helplessly, as the slime engulfed Walker. He saw the pale face turn to his, those eyes seemed to plead to him and he heard Walker plead for his help.

"Danny, what are you doing?" protested Jazz. "Save him!"

The cyborg's conscience was torn. After what Walker had done, he should save the General? Why should he let the General live? Walker had tried to kill him and had intended to do so ever since he had signed up to the Blue Bow Army. That man, that shambles of a man, had even tried to kill his sister. What if he were to save Walker? Would he then betray him then? Phantom couldn't trust this man. He had betrayed even Dr. Gotik, whom he had helped. What guarantee would he have that he himself would no be betrayed by Walker again if he were to save him?

Then there was the issue of what Fake Jasmine had said. Had she been malfunctioning? Was he really a Fenton and if he was, what did that mean? And if he was a Fenton, that meant Walker had also threatened to kill his real sister, Jazz Fenton. How could he trust that man? Why shouldn't he just let Fake Jasmine dispose of Walker, the way the General had wanted to dispose of him?

And the key answer was in that last question itself. Phantom knew that was the answer, the other side of him. He could not let Walker die. It wasn't just because he would end up being like Walker, the very man that he now despised. Phantom realised that it wasn't in his nature to let Walker go that way.

"Hold on!" cried Phantom, as he fired a beam of energy at Fake Jasmine first and severed the tentacles that pulled Walker in towards her cancerous body. He rushed towards the gelatinous mass, only for the ground to rupture and green slime spurted out. "Don't you dare!" he shouted at Fake Jasmine, as he fired another shot at her. "I won't let you harm anymore people!"

"You would fight your own sister, Danny?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously and it sounded as if she and Dr. Gotik were speaking together in unison. "I'm family, Danny. Not the Mansons. They're not your family. I am. Come, give your sister a hug."

"How's about I don't?" retorted Phantom, as he leapt over another huge chunk of displaced marble in his rush towards Walker. He tripped over another chunk of marble that suddenly sprang upwards like some springboard.

"Come, give me a hug, Danny," called out Fake Jasmine. "Don't be shy."

Slime burst out from the ground. How far had Fake Jasmine's green body spread? Had she permeated the floor below and spread underneath them? Perhaps it didn't even matter, as the slime fell upwards, making it look as if Phantom were upside-down.

Hands grew from the slime. A myriad of hands and arms reached out for Danny. They grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground, as Fake Jasmine called out to him.  
"Go to Hell!" shouted back Phantom, as he became intangible and let the hands and arms go through him. Then he ran. Phantom ran as fast as he could towards Walker. "Walker! Give me your hand!" he called out, as he extended his own hand out towards the slowly sinking General.

Phantom became solid again and reached out for Walker. He plunged his hand straight through the slime and attempted to grab the General by his hand. His fingers went through nothing but slime.  
"No!" he screamed, as he watched Walker slowly fade out of existence.

The shock of it brought him down to his knees. Phantom couldn't believe he could not save Walker in time. How was it even possible that he had failed?  
"You," he said with his head lowered. "You… Why?" he exclaimed, as his hands clenched tightly into fists of pure rage. "Why did you do this? Why did any of this have to happen?"

"Why did what have to happen?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously and she sounded as if several copies of Dr. Gotik and Walker were speaking in unison with several copies of herself. Her body quivered and began to ripple. "Why are you so sad, Danny? Why do you look so sad? Come, let your sister comfort you. I will hug you, kiss you and make everything better."

"He's dead now," stated Phantom, as he looked up at the hideous bloated cancer that slithered towards him. "So many people have died now because of FentonWorx, because of Gotik, because of Walker… BECAUSE OF YOU!" He rose back up to his feet slowly, yet deliberately, a grim, enraged expression on his face. His eyes, which used to glow an eerie green in his robotic form, now grew with a fiery green brilliance. "Didn't you think enough people have died because of… whatever twisted reasons the Corporation decided on?" he practically screamed at Fake Jasmine. "You had to add one more death to it all?"

Fake Jasmine's green, translucent body had taken on a new sheen. She seemed to glow with some twisted, holy light with great angelic wings spread out behind her. The cancerous form that she had once taken had disappeared and now in her place was some robotic angel holding a sword that flamed like the fires of Hell.  
"He is not dead," said Fake Jasmine and her lips moved with every word she spoke. "He lives on inside of me, as will all humans, as will all robots. I am the angel that will wipe away the sorrow of this world."

She smiled and it was a comforting smile, a sweet and peaceful smile. There seemed to be no insanity in her expression. Fake Jasmine seemed calm and serene. It really was as if she were a real angel, come down from the Heavens to bring redemption to the people of the world and lift them away from the corruption and the darkness.  
"I am not just your sister, dear sweet Danny," she told him. "I am everyone's sister. Under the power of my light, the darkness will fade away and everyone will live forever through me."

"But…" began Phantom, only to trail off. He could not continue. There was something so enticing about Fake Jasmine, about the light with which she shone. He could see a halo above her head. Phantom could see that the light was good. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to be bathed in it. "Jasmine?" he said in a perplexed tone of voice, as he walked towards her awaiting arms.

The angelic Jasmine was smiling, as she waited there in mid-air with her arms spread wide.  
"Come give your sister a hug," she called out to him. "Let me take away your worries. You need not worry anymore. No one will need to worry anymore. There is no need to think about the troubles of the world. There is no need to think anymore. Let me take your thoughts away. I will think for you. I will worry for you. Under one mind, there will be no more opposing views. No more ideals to fight over. There will be no more conflict and no more war."

* * *

"Mr. President," announced a voice. "The Metratron is ready to fire."

The President of the United States, a shrewd man, sat there grimly in his office. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Under his guidance, he had led his nation through dire times. His country had survived insurgency from within countless times. The President had, through martial law, prevented his country from fragmenting and dying under the grip of terror that the robot Insurgents had perpetrated.

Out of the range of the CHAOS, the President had been able to command his troops in securing more and more satellites and diminishing its broadcast range. Now the Metatron Satellite, which was supposedly a communications satellite, had been won back from the Insurgents.

It had been a stroke of genius on the part of the military to disguise an orbital weapon as a communications satellite. Built by the diminishing Rachaelis Trust, it was his country's last hope. It was aimed at the FentonWorx Corporation's Headquarters in Amitropolis. When he gave the sign, it would fire an energy beam upon the Five Towers and utterly destroy it.

For a long time, the members of the Rachaelis Trust had lobbied for FentonWorx's destruction. Yet he had been unable to do anything against FentonWorx, until it had started the Insurgency not so long ago. The Rachaelis Trust had been overjoyed when he froze the Corporation's assets and placed the final nail into G3's most prized company. Yet that had not been enough. FentonWorx continued its Insurgency despite his actions.

The President, a member of the Rachaelis Trust, was furious. Not only had the Corporation failed to die, but he had ended up looking a fool for being incapable of destroying the G3 company. His credibility as Leader had gone down the drain. FentonWorx had to pay for his humiliation.  
"Fire," he ordered calmly.

And high above them, above the Earth's stratosphere, the Metatron Satellite began to charge its cannon.

"Forgive me."

More light started to shine through the windows, despite it being the mid-afternoon. It was as if someone outside had switched on several glaring lamps. The light was impossibly bright. It could not have come from the sun. There was no way it had come from anything on Earth.

"What is going on?"

If it was any consolation, the no one in the Metatron's range felt anything, not even the President. It was as if they had been at ground zero of an atomic explosion. They were vaporised instantly.

* * *

"_Danny," the voice called out to him. "Danny!"_

_That voice sounded so familiar to him. Where had he heard it before? Whose voice was it and where were they?_

"_Danny…"_

_Eyes flickered open and then slowly slid shut again. They tried to open once more, but the eyelids felt so heavy that he was unable to keep them open. In that brief moment, he had seen something, but he was not quite sure what it was. It looked like some kind of light? A doctor's flashlight, perhaps? No, it seemed different from one of those, but he wasn't quite sure why he thought that._

_Memories were fleeting. They were intangible; there but not quite there, these memories lingered there like ghosts and probably were ghosts. After all, what is a ghost but the memory of someone kept alive by the living? Yet these memories were poor ghosts indeed, for he could not even see their shape or form. He wanted to touch them, feel them and know them. Yet they were beyond his reach. He could just taste them on the tip of his tongue, yet their flavour, their scent, was unrecognisable._

"_Danny, please wake up."_

* * *

"Danny, what's wrong?" asked Fake Jasmine.

Phantom had stopped in his tracks. He had been walking straight towards Fake Jasmine and her open arms. Yet he had stopped, as memories came back to him. They were memories of darkness, a soft yet somehow warm darkness. That darkness, for a long time, had been due to the bandages wrapped around his head. For a long time, he had existed in that darkness, lying there on the hospital bed with his head bandaged, until that voice had called out to him. It was that memory that had made him stop dead in his tracks.

The voice that had called out to him in the hospital had been that of the real Jasmine Fenton, or Jazz, as she liked to be called. It was the memory of the real Jazz that made Phantom stop. The tenderness in the real Jazz's voice was nothing like that of the Fake Jasmine. It was warmer than that of Fake Jasmine's; it had more emotion.

"You… You're not my sister," stated Phantom sternly, as he looked up at the angelic robot, a pale imitation of the real Jazz Fenton. "You're not my family."

"_Yes!_" called out Jazz in triumph. "_That's it, Danny! You tell her!_"

The Fake Jasmine continued to smile, as if her face was a mask like the old one that now lay in shards on the floor.  
"I'm sorry you feel that way," she told him, "but thanks to you, I now know the truth. Walker was right. I was in error. You are not the real Daniel Fenton. You're not even the real Daniel Manson, because there never was a Daniel Manson." She laughed, most likely at Phantom. "You think I'm a fake?" she asked him. "Look in the mirror and you will see that you're just like me."

Phantom smiled at her remark, something that Fake Jasmine did not even expect to see.  
"I'm nothing like you," he told the robot. "You know why? Coz I have a family that loves me, no matter what. I have friends. You? You don't have any of that. There's no fakes here except for you and your fake love and your fake peace." He focused plasma energy into his hands, as he braced himself.

"You are going down!" shouted Phantom, before he fired a blast of plasma energy straight up at the Fake Jasmine.

_**END TRANSMISSION #10**_


	12. Transmission 11

Warning: This chapter might upset a few readers, as it has a few 9/11 references in it. I also apologise for the short length of this chapter and hope that it will not detract from your enjoyment of it.

* * *

_**BEGIN TRANSMISSION #11**_

_Danny had closed his eyes after the bandages had been removed. After so long in the darkness, the light had been blinding and had hurt. Yet there had been so little, for Dr. Manson had had the foresight to dim the room with black curtains and had turned off the lights. _

"_Oh, it's still too bright?" Dr. Manson had asked Danny, after he had seen Danny close his eyes again. "I'm sorry. Just try to get used to the light. You'll have to." _

_The youth's glimpse had been so brief that he hadn't been able to see the doctor that had taken care of him for so long. It had been too blurred anyway. Perhaps, though, he would have been able to see Dr. Manson, given time. He had hoped to be able to see the generous physician whom had devoted so much of his time to him.  
"It's… It's all right," Danny had told the doctor. "I'd just… forgotten what it was like…"_

* * *

Phantom's eyes glowed an eerie green, as he glowered at Fake Jasmine. They weren't his original eyes; those had been damaged a long time ago. No, when Dr. Manson had operated on him, he had given Danny new eyes, cybernetic ones that were far better than any that were normally available. These eyes had allowed Danny to see in full colour, something that was not normally available at the time, and in such great resolution, that they were almost like real eyes.

It had taken him a long time to get adjusted to his new eyes, just as it had taken him a long time to get adjusted to his cybernetic limbs and eventually his powers as Phantom. There had been much trial and error on his behalf. Sam had helped him. Tucker had helped him. He had received so much help from his friends. There was no way he could let them down, not after all they had been through.

"You're no sister of mine," Phantom shouted at Fake Jasmine. "You're no friend of mine. My real friends were there for me when I needed them most, but you were never there. I could always turn to them, but where were you?" He charged up another plasma bolt in his hands and steadied himself. "It's no use apologising now," he told Fake Jasmine. "It's no use being there for me now. It's too late."

All the while, Fake Jasmine had looked down on him, smiling. Her smile never once left her lips. It was as if Phantom's words had not fazed her at all.  
"Such a horrible boy," she said after a while of silence, as she floated there, her metallic angel wings unmoving. "To forgive and forget is the greatest mercy that I can grant. It is a sign of ultimate compassion that only those with a pure heart can give. Yet you would not forgive? Your heart is impure. There is no room for the likes of you in my new world."

With her last word, Fake Jasmine spread her arms out. A brilliant blast of light sped through the air and knocked Phantom off his feet before he could even leap out of the way.  
"The old President is dead," called out Fake Jasmine. "His Reign of Hatred is over. My Reign of Love will begin." She fired another dazzling blast of light energy straight at Phantom.

"Is that all you've got?" taunted Phantom again, as it went straight through his intangible body. He was relieved to still find that Fake Jasmine's shot had not made him lose concentration and that the charge of plasma energy was still held firmly in his hands. "That was nothing. Let me show you how it should be done." With that, he fired a blast of plasma energy straight back up at Fake Jasmine.

Metallic wings curled round Fake Jasmine protectively and the plasma blast hit them. The wings spread back out again. Fake Jasmine continued to smile. Her right hand was partially clenched into a fist with her first finger and ring finger stretched out and upwards. The tips of both fingers began to glow and she drew a religious symbol in the air that lingered there, before it hurtled straight down at Phantom.

"May my righteous fires burn your sinful body," called out Fake Jasmine, before she inhaled sharply and breathed out. A plume of flames erupted from her mouth and hurtled down towards her target. She missed, but the flames scorched the ground like napalm.

Phantom looked past the roaring flames towards the metallic figure of Fake Jasmine. His entire body was like a tightly wound coil; he was ready to leap into action. Every single muscle, every single hydraulic system in his body anticipated another blow. Dr. Gotik may have told him that none of his actions had been his own, but that of the Phantom Armour, the very cybernetic implants that had been given to him mistake; none of that mattered, anymore.

The cyborg sprang into action. He ran straight through the flames without even going intangible. The air filled up with bolts of pure light that struck the ground with such heavy shocks that Phantom was nearly shaken off his feet. He leapt up out of the flames and smashed a plasma-charged fist straight into her.

There was a scream from Fake Jasmine, as his glowing fist seared through the metal and melted it like a hot knife through butter. She thrashed her arms out violently at Phantom and knocked him back.  
"Such a violent boy," gasped Fake Jasmine, as she clutched at the wound in her metallic chest. "It is shameful that you could be a Fenton, like me."

"You're not a Fenton," protested Phantom sternly, as he got back up to his feet. "You're nothing." He then swore, as he noticed the two faces that appeared from the hole he had made her in her hull. "You've got to be kidding me," he sighed heavily, as he saw Gotik's face and Walker's face appear on Fake Jasmine's body, making her look like some horrific freak show.

"I have the power to deactivate the Phantom Armour, Danny," called out Fake Jasmine, as she smiled at him with three lips. "It's time for you to put your little toy away and go to sleep. Yes, it's time for you to go to sleep. You must not live to see the new world I will make."

Phantom frowned.  
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, as he looked up at her defiantly. He spread his arms out. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Three orange and white Geists suddenly rose up from the floor. They aimed their cannons straight at Phantom and opened fire.

"Yeah, I thought you couldn't do it," said Phantom, as he became intangible and let each shot pass straight through him harmlessly. That was more than could be said for the shots he fired back in return; the Geists practically exploded upon contact.

The cyborg ran and avoided being shot at by Fake Jasmine. He bent down as he ran and scooped up the nearest shrapnel-sharp piece of metal into his hand.  
"You know, I thought you looked ugly before," called out Phantom, as he ran straight at Fake Jasmine. "But now you've got three heads, you're three times as ugly." He became tangible seconds later and fired off a few shots of plasma energy at the metallic angel. "If ruling the world doesn't work out for you, I bet you could get a good job in a freak show. Heck, you can be the entire Freak Show!"

Fake Jasmine screamed out in pure rage and dived down straight at Phantom. She lashed out with her clawed hands much quicker than he had anticipated though, and ended up creating three huge gouge marks along his chest.  
"You rude whelp!" she called out angrily. "I'll teach you some manners!"

"Yeah, right!" retorted Phantom, before he shoved the orange shard of metal straight into Walker's face. He then reached out with his other hand, which went intangible and delved straight into Fake Jasmine's chest.

A shock of electricity suddenly jolted through him. Then electricity surged through his body. It travelled from Fake Jasmine straight into him. Phantom's body convulsed. Circuits melted. His nerves were ready to fry and the fatty myelin sheath around them could have melted straight off for all he knew. He felt as if he was going to die and the worst part of it was that he couldn't remove his hand from inside her chest.

Images of his past flashed before his eyes.

The event always seems long when you're living it, but when you look back, it always seems so short. The future stretches out in front, yet the past shrinks like a machine-washed wool sweater. So it was with Danny.

Danny remembered awakening from darkness to find himself in the rubble of a ruined building. He remembered being incapable of moving, yet was able to see the sunlight. Countless days had been spent in those ruins and the memory of each agonisingly long day came back to him; no matter which day he decided to think about, it all seemed so short in retrospect. The time he went blind. The time he went into the hospital. The countless hours he had spent being taught how to use his own limbs again.

His memories seemed so short compared to the excruciating minutes, possibly even seconds that he spent being electrocuted. Even that would seem short upon retrospect, if he survived that is. At the moment, it didn't look as if he would, though perhaps he would have all eternity in the afterlife to look upon his sad life in retrospect and regret all the decisions that he had made and those decisions that had been out of his control.

"This world shall move into the future under my guiding light!" called out Fake Jasmine in a rapturous voice. "I will build Heaven on Earth and rid this world of the suffering that only mankind can bring unto himself. You, you selfish boy, won't be able to stop me!" She laughed joyfully. "The world shall rejoice under my rule, for I will be the world and there will be no one else but me!"

"Dream on, freak show!"

A huge blast of purple energy flew through the air and took Fake Jasmine's head straight off her shoulders. It fell and clattered on to the floor, leaking oil, with that rapturous expression frozen on her face.

Seconds later, Phantom fell backwards. He looked at his hand and smiled. The CHAOS Core was in his hands; he had ripped it straight out of Fake Jasmine.  
"Thanks, Val," he said, as he looked behind him.

"Don't thank me just yet, robot," snapped Valerie angrily, as she glared at him. "I've got one more thing to do," she said, as she aimed her bazooka straight at Phantom. She opened fire.

Phantom was thankful he had ducked when he did.  
"Hey!" he protested angrily. "What do you think you're doing?" He couldn't believe she had just taken a shot at him. Did the fact that he had saved her mean anything to her, or didn't she care?

"That CHAOS Core must be destroyed, Phantom," said Valerie sternly. "And I don't care if you're destroyed along with it."

"But… but I saved you!" Phantom reminded her.

"So?" asked Valerie nonchalantly. "That don't mean a thing," she told him sternly. "Coz you know, what? I don't trust robots, 'specially not a FentonWorx lackey like you."

Danny/Phantom couldn't believe what he had just heard. He had saved her, but she still acquainted him as an enemy of some sorts.  
"Are you nuts?" he cried angrily, "Didn't you see me fighting against Fake Jasmine? I'm no FentonWorx lackey!"

"Yeah, right," sneered Valerie sarcastically. "Why should I trust you?" She re-aimed her bazooka at Phantom carefully this time round. Valerie was determined to not miss.

"I think you have more pressing matters to worry about," announced three voices from behind Phantom.

As Phantom turned round, Valerie looked behind the cyborg. Both of them saw the figure of Fake Jasmine. Their attention was focused on the robot, whom had managed to repair herself in the time they had been shouting at each other. The holes in her body were gone, as were the dents. Her head was reattached somehow, though now it had Gotik's and Walker's faces attached to the sides.

Phantom sighed exasperatedly.  
"Seriously, this is getting really old!" he groaned. The hand he held the CHAOS Core in glowed with green plasma energy, as he raised it and held it out in front of him at arm's length. "Let me guess, you want this, right?" he asked, as he held it out tauntingly. "Well, tough!" he cried, just as he fired a plasma bolt from the hand he held the CHAOS Core in, shattering it into a million shards of metal.

The plasma energy struck Fake Jasmine in one wing and took it straight off, much to Phantom's surprise.

* * *

_Danny had looked out of the hospital window and out onto the street below. He had seen the people that bustled through the street, busy as usual. Often, he had envied them and his desire to be amongst them had never been as great as it was then. His memories of his past, after all, had been missing. As far as he had known, he had never been amongst them and as he had sat there at the window, he had wondered what it would be like. _

_Television had offered him some insight. He had known there would be people there that did not smile, but just as many that did. The life, so vibrant, would have been all around him and he would have been amongst that crowd of people, a part of that cultural melting pot. _

_Sometimes, Danny had wondered what it would have been like to be a bird. He had often seen them flying around through the air aimlessly, almost as if they were merely enjoying the feeling of the wind through their feathers. Danny had envied them too. He had often wondered what it was like to fly and feel the utter freedom of being able to travel in any of the three dimensions. The endless possibilities had haunted his mind and he had sat there at the window, his eyes focused on their graceful movements through the air and his mind would have often dreamt of what it was like. _

_His eyelids had slid down almost halfway with the thought. Danny had started to dream and then…_

* * *

There had been a loud bang. He had watched a robot become an Insurgent and start attacking. There had been much screaming and in the confusion and shock, the birds had scattered. One had flown straight at the window he had sat at. He had not seen it land, but he remembered seeing it fall, its wing and neck twisted in an unnatural manner.

Fake Jasmine's wing lay broken on the floor in front of Phantom. It reminded him so much of that particular day, of the injustice and horror he had seen.

"Look, Valerie, I don't care if you don't trust me or not," he called out to her, without taking his eyes off of Fake Jasmine. "All I know is that we've got to work together to take this freak show down. No one will be happy if she takes over; humans, robots, none of us will be happy. If you don't trust me, fine. I'm not asking you to trust me just like that. All I'm asking is for you to help me beat this thing."

A laugh came from Fake Jasmine.  
"Foolish child, why would a human trust you?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously. "You aren't human. You aren't a robot. Humans won't trust you, because you're one of them, the terrorist robots that kill innocent people. Robots won't trust you, because you're a human too, one of those that oppress them. No one can trust you, boy. Who would be stupid enough to do so?"

"Shut up!" shouted Phantom angrily.

"You're rude, you're stupid, you're weak," continued Fake Jasmine, as she floated towards Phantom. "No one cares for you."

Another beam of energy flew through the air and it struck Fake Jasmine; the force was so great, it shoved her backwards.  
"Yeah, shut up," agreed Valerie, as she stood there with smoke rising from her bazooka. "I've had enough of you. Gotik, Walker, you, you're all the same. I trust you less than Phantom here and that's very little. If you were to rule this world, I'd rather die than live under you."

Fake Jasmine laughed and as usual, her voice sounded like a combination of Gotik's and Walker's as well as that of Jasmine.  
"So be it," she chuckled. She fired a blast of light energy straight at Valerie.

It struck a barrier of ghostly green energy and at its source was a smiling cyborg, Phantom.  
"I don't think so, Freak Show," he said to her with a mocking wag of a finger. He then shoved both his arms forward and what energy in front of him suddenly pulsed forwards and struck Fake Jasmine.

A split second later, Valerie fired a rocket straight at Fake Jasmine.

There was a huge explosion as the projectiles struck. A shrill scream echoed around them and there was the clattering of metal against solid ground.

* * *

The red-haired woman, clad in a black suit, walked through the corridors calmly with her hands folded behind her back.  
"So, Jack, is the Metatron ready to fire again?" asked the woman curiously.

"Yes, Mrs. Corbeau," began the red-haired man, only to gain a glare of contempt from the woman's emerald green eyes. "I mean, President Corbeau," he said quickly and then weakly added, "ma'am."

With President H. R. Bean's demise, Corbeau had been the next in succession and had become the First American Woman President upon her rise to power. Though from the same party as Bean, she had been prevented from rising through the ranks due to her background of having been a G3 member. Yet now, she was in charge and she would make sure that those politicians that pandered to the Rachaelis crowd would get what was coming to them.

"Good," said President Corbeau with a cold smile on her lips. "On my orders, open fire. We'll wipe the Five Towers off the face of the map." And cover up the G3's mistakes while they were at it, but she didn't say that out loud.

* * *

"Is it… over?"

Phantom peered over the battered remains of Fake Jasmine. There was hardly anything left.  
"Yeah, I think it is," he said quietly with a slow nod of his head. He couldn't believe that it was over so quickly though. After all he had suffered through, he couldn't believe that his problems were over so quickly. "Good riddance," he said, as he dusted his hands.

"Now that that's over, I'm guessing I can take you out too," said Valerie, as she aimed her bazooka at the cyborg. "One shot is all I need."

"_You don't have time for that_," protested Jazz's voice, which seemed to come from the golden light that floated above the two. "_You've got to get out of here. The Army's re-primed the Metatron. Get out now, before they open fire!_"

"What?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief.

"_They're going to destroy this place_," elaborated Jazz quickly. "_Get out! Get out now!_"

And high above them, above the Earth's stratosphere, the Metatron Satellite began to charge its cannon. It floated there like Death, staring down with its all-seeing eye. The glow on the cannon intensified. It became a powerful glow of concentrated energy that pulsed and beat like a living heart.

A beam of energy flew out from the Metatron and the entire satellite shuddered.

The beam of energy burst through into the atmosphere and the sky burned with red. It made the air boil, as the beam traveled further down towards the Earth. This time, the Five Towers lay right underneath it. A split second later, the beam struck the top of the tower and smashed into it. Soon all five towers were enveloped in the energy; windows shattered, steel buckled and the complex was obliterated.

* * *

"And now for our top headline," announced the news reporter, as she looked up from her notes. "FentonWorx Amitropolis Branch was completely annihilated by the US Armed Forces late last night," she said, as the picture changed to a twisted mass of metal and rubble, "after a brutal week-long nationwide Insurgency initiated by Dr. Frederick Gotik. Under the command of Gotik, the robots rebelled against the Government and managed to assassinate the President…"

"My Grandmother's coming back," said Sam, as if to drown out the sound of the television. "What with the travel restrictions lifted and all," she added. "It's been a long time."

"How is Grandma Manson?" asked Tucker politely.

There was a laugh from the black-haired Goth.  
"Doing well for an eighty-year old woman," was Sam's reply. She smiled at the thought of her Grandmother, a woman who was both too resilient to change and at the same time ready to find any exciting challenge that awaited her. At times, she had found her Grandmother exasperating, embarrassing even, but that was before she had become a Goth. "I just hope that I'd end up more like her when I'm her age."

"Acting President, W-," began the news speaker and here the first name of the new President was mumbled and became incomprehensible, "Corbeau announced a National Day of Mourn…"

The picture on the television suddenly disappeared, as Sam flicked it off with a press of the TV remote. A sour expression had appeared on her face from the moment the news started. Her smile, that happiness of seeing her Grandmother again, all had been wiped away by the reminder of the sorrow that ran through their lives.

It disgusted her, to know that the Government Report on the Insurgency had been a complete white wash.

As far as the public knew, Gotik and Walker had started the Insurgency with their CHAOS. The official line was that FentonWorx had nothing to do with the Insurgency, that it had all been Gotik and Walker. The Corporation had been completely absolved from all blame. So many had died, that was for sure, yet the new Administration under President Corbeau had let the FentonWorx Executives off.

Sam felt bitter and discontent. The verdict was something she should have expected, but it still left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. It made matters worse that the public swallowed up the lies without a single thought. Had this been what Danny had fought for, a world where those who were to blame could get away with their crimes, where the public were unthinking sheep?  
"If Danny were here," she began, only to trail off. The subject of Danny still upset her. "You know… I feel, as if Danny is still alive somewhere."

For a while, there was silence. Tucker didn't respond. He didn't know what to say. A little bit of him also believed that Danny was still alive and out there. After all, he had a robot alter-ego, a more powerful and resilient one. If anyone could have survived the Five Towers' destruction, it was him.  
"Yeah, I feel that way too," responded Tucker calmly.

There was no plausible reason for them to believe that Danny had survived the explosion. Five Towers' destruction had been far more devastating than the bombing campaign that had put Danny into hospital for four years. Barely little of it was left. Each one of the towers was a hollow skeleton, a shadow of its former self. Neither Gotik nor Walker had survived. Fake Jasmine's remnants had been completely unsalvageable.

Yet still, they believed. Their faith in Danny was stronger than anything else they had experienced. It made the painful sorrow that had plagued their entire lives a mere triviality. Nothing was more substantial than their faith, which was a bizarre quality for something so intangible, something that couldn't be proved. It almost bored on the delusional, resembling something like Orwellian double-think; to escape from insanity, they had to embrace a tamer form of madness, a delusional mind that refused to accept the truth of their world.

Sam had always scorned those that had a belief in something that could not be proven. The irony of her situation was not lost on her and in the end, she wondered, was it possible that the insane one was the mind that took rationality to an extreme? After all, the Insurgent robots had all claimed to be more rational than human beings, yet were they not the crazy ones? Their rationality had been taken to an extreme; they had become as insane as the Nazis of old.

"Danny, please come back."

* * *

Phantom stared upwards with his green eyes that still glowed with its almost ghostly intensity. He blinked twice and wondered where he was, as he lay there, staring up at the clear blue sky. Had he come full circle? Was he underneath the ruins of Amitropolis again, trapped, his limbs unusable and slowly decaying?

"_When I first saw you in the hospital, I couldn't believe my eyes,_" said Jazz warmly, as she stood over Phantom translucently like a hologram. "_There you were, my little brother, safe and sound. You know, we were so worried. We all thought that you'd… Well, we were afraid the worst had happened… But I'm so glad you're alright._"

So it was true. What Fake Jasmine had told him was true. He was a Fenton, the brother of Jazz Fenton and the son of Jack and Madeline Fenton. All of FentonWorx could have been his at one time, if he hadn't disappeared.  
"Jazz?" asked Phantom curiously, as he lay there motionless on the floor. He saw her head nod silently in reply to his question. "How…?" he began, but couldn't get any further than that. "I want to know, Jazz. How'd… How'd I get out of there?"

The smile on Jazz's lips had slowly faded away. Whether this was because her hologram was losing power or whether the smile was genuinely gone, Phantom couldn't quite tell.  
"_It doesn't matter now, Danny,_" she told him calmly. "_All that matters it that you're safe now. That's all that matters._" She sighed. "_You know, now that I know where you are, Mom'll be glad._"

A frown raised Phantom's eyebrows. He tried to picture an image of his real biological mother, Madeline Fenton, but he couldn't for some reason. All he could remember was the oil painting that hung on a wall in the school, a lifeless image from which she glared out with an expression of pure sorrow.  
"I… I can't remember anything about her," he admitted to Jazz.

"_Don't worry, Danny_," said Jazz reassuringly. "It'll all come back in time."

Danny hoped that it would. He didn't like the idea of spending the rest of his life not knowing his real family.  
"Jazz," he began and stopped there.

"_What is it?_" asked Jazz curiously.

"What about, Dad?" he asked, as he thought about Jack Fenton.

Jazz regarded him as if he had just asked a question in Esperanto. The puzzled expression on her face was not reassuring to him, but it was all she could offer him at that moment in time.  
"_You mean, you don't know?_" she asked Danny incredulously. "_I'd have thought everybody knew. It was on the news, don't you remember? It was all anybody would talk about._"

Perhaps he had heard, but Phantom didn't remember listening to the news much. It depressed him. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that it might have happened when he was in the hospital and his TV had been on the fritz all that time.  
"Jazz, I'm fourteen," he told her sternly. "Do you really think I would watch or even listen to the news? Come on! I'm just a kid, for crying out loud. Besides, do you know how depressing the news can get?"

"_I'm sorry, Danny_," apologised Jazz sincerely. "I forgot. It was stupid of me."

"No, no, it's not your fault," apologised Phantom with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so hard on you."

Jazz sighed.  
"_No, I'm the one that should be sorry_," she apologised. "_It's just Well… It's kinda hard talking about Dad, y'know, what with him being institutionalised._"

Phantom blinked twice.  
"Dad's in a mental ward?" he asked Jazz curiously.

"_He shouldn't be there_," protested Jazz angrily. "_Our Dad's not crazy. I bet Greenhithe had something to do with it. He probably had Dad locked up._" She chuckled. "_But, you don't have to worry about that, Danny. Mom and me are working to get Dad out of there. We'll take care of everything. You just… You just get back to your friends and live your life as you want to._"

Now there was a thought that Phantom hadn't had for a long time. Yes, he had never quite thought about it, but now that the Fake Jasmine was gone, now that the Blue Bow had been destroyed and Gotik's insane plans thwarted, he could do just that. He could, as Daniel Manson or Daniel Fenton, live a normal teenager's life. Skulker was gone. The Insurgents were a distant memory and those that still existed would be disorganised, few and far between.

Danny was sure that he could handle only a few Insurgents. He'd be a part time superhero. By day he would live his life as an average teenager, something he had never thought he'd be, and whenever the occasion arose, he would become Phantom and fight against the Insurgents.

"_Bye, Danny_," said Jazz, as she started to fade away. "_I've got to go now, but I really hope we can see each other soon. You take care now, okay?_"

"Yeah," said Phantom, as he nodded his head. "Take care."

Suddenly, he whirled round and fired a plasma shot. It took the head of a Geist clean off its metallic shoulders. He watched it fall down to the ground and then, the smile on his lips faded.  
"Damn, you guys just don't quit, do you?" he called out to the tens upon tens of Geists that seemed to stretch out into the distance. "Fake Jasmine's dead, you know? What do you think you're fighting for?"

It was no use talking to the Geists, though, Danny/Phantom knew that. He noticed the symbol on their chests was that of the FentonWorx Corporation, and wondered whether the Corporation had been destroyed or not. Phantom chuckled.  
"Don't worry, Jazz," he said, despite the fact that he knew she wasn't there to hear him anymore. "I won't let anything bad happen to me. You just help Mom get Dad out of the psycho ward. I'll take care of any Insurgents that pop up.

"I can handle them," stated Danny/Phantom determinedly. "You can count on me. I won't stop! I won't let them have their way. Any Insurgent that appears will regret ever messing with Phantom." He cried out and rushed headfirst into the crowd of Geists, plasma energy charged and concentrated into the palms of his hands.

Phantom shattered one more Geist into pieces with a blast of plasma energy. That was one down and forty-nine more to go, but he could handle it. Oh, he could definitely handle it.

_**END TRANSMISSION #11**_

* * *

**For Endless Fight:  
Phantom Hazard Ending Theme Song**

I'm walking in the rain,  
Walking all alone again.  
You said you'd be with me  
For eternity.  
But I don't know if you care  
That my heart is breaking.  
Don't know if you're waiting there.  
Do you care that I am aching?

I'm there and fighting for you  
On the line in blood they drew.  
I'm there and fighting for you,  
In this endless fight for you.

My troubled, melted mind  
Longs for the life left behind,  
Wonders what I left there  
And if you still care?  
I thought we could be together  
For the rest of our lives.  
I thought our love was forever,  
Now I'm wondering if I'll survive.

I'm there and fighting for you  
On the line in blood they drew.  
I'm there and fighting for you,  
In this endless fight for you.

The memory of your smile still haunts my mind.  
There's not a day I wish I hadn't left you behind.

I'm there and fighting for you  
On the line in blood they drew.  
I'm there and fighting for you,  
In this endless fight for you.

I'm there and fighting for you.  
I'm there and living and dying for you.  
I'm fighting for you.  
I'll be there, there for you

* * *

_**END of DISC One**_

Author's Note: Corbeau means Raven, you know. You know what else means, raven? Wuya.  
P.S. Oh, by the way, I'm ending the story here. I do actually have a sequel planned, but whether I put it up on or not all depends on whether there's popular support for one. If I do plan on publishing the sequel, it will be tagged on to the end of this story in the form or Part Two, or as I'll be calling it, Disc Two.


End file.
